Becoming Human
by Mango Marbles
Summary: Sequel to Leave Normal Alone. Sam's recovery is looking to be a long road. Dean and John are willing to help, but Sam doesn't want them to find out that he might not be the same person they were hoping to find. He's become a monster. A pre-series AU. Pyrokinesis Sam. Dark/sensitive themes and content.
1. Where to Start

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **Warnings:** As the sequel to _Leave Normal Alone,_ this story will likely involve drugs, sexual content/situations (non-explicit), violence, and alcohol (they're Winchesters) at varying points throughout.

 **Author's Note Part One:** This is the sequel to _Leave Normal Alone,_ a story written from a prompt from M.J. Ellsworth. If you haven't read it, this story might not make much sense.

* * *

"Dean, try to get some sleep."

Dean didn't need to glance at the door to know it was his father standing there, waiting for him to follow the request. But Dean couldn't do it. Hell, he couldn't even take his eyes off of Sam, sprawled out in the same bed he slept in as a child when they would visit Pastor Jim and securely bundled in all of the spare blankets Dean found.

The trembling only ceased when Sam fell asleep, and Dean was sure that it wasn't due to the near-winter chill in the Minnesotan air.

He knew some of what Sam had been through in the past month, but he didn't know which part of it, exactly, left him shaking. Maybe it was a combination of things. He just wished Sam would give him a hint. Give him anything to work with.

But Sam had yet to say a word. Dean came up with a list of possible explanations for it, shock and the electrical burns on his neck at the top of it.

"No point," Dean said. He kept his voice quiet, hoping that Sam could have a peaceful night of rest. Knowing that he would regardless because of the amount of sleeping pills he took. While he refused pills offered to him, Sam would take them if left in his grasp. If left where he could control how many and when he took them.

The sleeping pills that Dean would be taking and keeping hidden, only giving out the proper dosage to Sam at night, if he would actually accept them from him, so he wouldn't have to worry about Sam not waking up one morning.

"Dean—"

"No, Dad," he said. "You don't understand. You didn't see him."

Dean knew the second he burst into Sam's room at the nightclub that the image of a strange man on him would never leave Dean's brain. His mind latched onto it and brought it up over and over to remind him of the cost of his failure.

"I'm sorry you saw him like that," John said.

"Not as sorry as I am that Sam had to experience it," Dean said.

Dean felt his father's hand fall onto his shoulder, not having heard him move closer. He would have been ashamed at that fact because his hunter training was supposed to have helped him realize when someone was sneaking up on him, but there was no more room for shame in him. No more room for guilt. He had more of both than he could carry.

He could blame the jet lag creeping up on him for his lack of awareness, but he knew that it came from having to face Sam. Having to face how badly he screwed up a month ago.

It would have been simpler to blame the jet lag. To absolve himself of responsibility.

"At least go lay in the other bed," John said. "You can still see Sam from there, and I'll take the chair. If you don't fall asleep, you don't fall asleep. If you _do_ fall asleep, well, you need it."

Dean wanted to rebel against his father's suggestion, the way Sam used to, but the memories of what happened last time he disobeyed were relentless and he moved to the other bed. It was unusual for his dad to be so, well, fatherly. He was so used to John the hardened hunter that he forgot about John the father.

"What about you?" he asked. "The jet lag must be hitting you, too?"

John shook his head and said, "You've been lost in your own world while sitting here. I already slept during the day, after we got Sam settled and filled in Jim."

The only light in the room came through the window from streetlights and the waning moon, but it was enough for Dean to still be able to see Sam in the other bed with their dad hunched in the chair beside him.

Why was it tragedy that brought them together like this?

Dean tried to stay awake and keep an eye on Sam, not that he didn't trust John to do it. It was just his responsibility. It had always been his responsibility to be there when Sam needed him. To be there when Sam was hurting or upset and make it right.

Only he didn't know if he could this time. Sometimes, when Sam looked at him with his empty eyes, it was like the kid he knew was a stranger now. He wondered if he ever really knew Sam the way he believed he used to.

His eyelids drooped lower and lower, his body pushed past its limits and in need of the rest. He fell asleep wondering if this would be their new normal. A silent and broken Sam. A fatherly John without a hunt driving him.

He didn't know where he fit in that picture.

* * *

When he woke up, the sun was low in the evening sky, which meant that jet lag once again stole nearly an entire day from him. He faced the wall and rolled over, expecting to see Sam on the opposite bed. He didn't seem willing to leave the room since they arrived at Jim's, and Dean didn't expect that to stop anytime soon.

But Sam wasn't there, and his bed was made neatly.

Dean got up and checked the bathroom first (empty) before making his way to the kitchen.

Sam sat at one of the chairs with a plate of plain toast in front of him, untouched. He stared at the plate, but Dean was certain that he wasn't really seeing it. The fluorescent lights of the kitchen illuminated how sickly pale he'd become and brought to Dean's attention the dark circles under Sam's eyes along with how thin he looked even buried in layers of clothes.

Dean slipped into the chair closest to Sam's, and looked over at his dad leaning against the counter with a mug of steaming coffee in one hand.

"I thought that if I just left it in front of him, he would eat some of it. Like how he took the sleeping pills when they were in his possession. On his terms," John explained.

"Except he didn't," Dean said.

"Except he didn't," John echoed.

"He's gone way too long without eating," Dean said.

John nodded. "I'm going to head to the store later and see if I can't find something that he might be willing to at least try eating."

"Hear that, Sammy?" Dean asked. "Dad's making a grocery run just for you. Better put in your requests now."

Sam still had yet to make a sound, and Dean didn't expect any reaction at all. But he saw Sam's eyes flick towards him for a second. He almost missed the minuscule shake of his head.

Purposeful responses were good, better than he could have asked for, but he wished that Sam's answer had been different. He didn't have to talk if he didn't want to. Dean could've grabbed him a pen and paper to write down anything he wanted, just as long as there was _something_ he wanted to eat.

Instead, Dean had to plaster on a smile and accept Sam's refusal. Trying to force Sam into doing something didn't go over well these days, though Dean recalled that Sam never did well with being forced to do anything.

So he just let it go, because he didn't want to risk ruining the small bits of progress Sam made. He didn't want Sam to stop giving more and more responses to direct questions. He didn't want Sam to stop giving them little signs that he was still in there and more-or-less aware. He didn't want Sam to refuse to leave the safety of the bedroom again.

But he couldn't help feeling that letting Sam waste away wasn't the better option.

"How did you convince him to come down here?" Dean asked. The most he'd gotten Sam to do was go to the bathroom across the hall and back to the bedroom.

"I had to drag him down here. I thought the change of scenery might help, but there's not much difference."

Dean nodded. He hoped for his dad to have figured out a way to get through to Sam, but he also knew that was a bit much to hope for.

"Where's Caleb?"

John grinned a bit. Not as full as it used to be, but a grin nonetheless. "Asleep on Jim's couch. Looks like the jet lag hit him even harder than it did you."

Dean got up and poured himself a cup of coffee, then looked over at Sam's untouched meal. He opened the fridge for anything that Sam might be willing to at least drink if he wouldn't eat the toast. Something sugary, maybe.

Orange juice. He grabbed the carton and poured a cup before he paused. Did Sam even like orange juice? He couldn't remember the last time he saw Sam drink it.

It scared him to not know basic pieces of information about Sam like what he liked or disliked anymore. He used to know Sam better than anyone. He used to be able to answer any question asked about Sam without hesitation. When had they become so disconnected?

He placed the cup in front of Sam and pushed his plate away before taking the seat beside him again.

"Think you could drink a bit of juice, Sam?" Dean asked.

He expected no answer or for Sam to shake his head, so it was a pleasant surprise when Sam shrugged. It wasn't a yes, but it wasn't a no either.

* * *

Sam stared at the wall in his bedroom again. He knew Dean was behind him, watching and aware that he was awake. Before everything happened, he would have called his brother a creep and shared a laugh with him, but not anymore. Having Dean near gave him reassurance that he was safe now, but his mind was still having trouble understanding that he was safe. How did they manage to find him? The odds had to have been against it, he was sure there wasn't much to go on for his location.

The most logical answer his brain provided was that he was still in the nightclub, high on a cocktail of drugs. If he was hallucinating something this vividly, then it must be bad.

Not much made sense anymore, but the wall in front of him was steady so he focused on that. He let it ground him amidst the questions he needed to ask Dean, but just couldn't. Anytime he tried, his throat closed so tightly it hurt and the words got trapped inside. All the trapped questions were starting to hurt.

He wondered if Dean noticed it. If he could see his throat constrict to the point that breathing became difficult. With the way Dean watched him with hawk eyes lately, he'd have to guess that he did indeed notice. He just never brought it up. He never asked.

Not that Sam could have answered.

He still felt the fire inside of him. Each day he didn't use it, it grew stronger. More insistent. He started taking the sleeping pills left in the nightstand just to shut it up. Just to keep it suffocated within him so that his family wouldn't know that he wasn't the same person they wanted to save. He couldn't even be called a human anymore. Humans couldn't start fires _with their mind_.

The pills were no longer an option. They were missing from the nightstand, swapped for candy bars. Dean's doing, he knew. Probably afraid of how many he took the night before, but he shouldn't be. Sam was ninety percent sure he was still in the club anyway. The amount of sleeping pills he took here wouldn't hurt him in the least.

The problem is that he isn't one hundred percent sure if the nightmares are taking him back to the reality his mind is trying desperately to escape, or if being at Pastor Jim's with his family is reality. That they managed to find and get him out against the odds.

The thought that they did scared him almost as much as the thought that they didn't.

* * *

Dean offered Sam some of the sleeping pills (the _proper_ dosage, not the frightening amount Sam took when left to his own devices), but he refused them. Dean knew he had to figure out a way to get Sam out of this new habit of his. He couldn't refuse everything offered to him. And if he didn't start eating soon, they would have no choice but to take him to the hospital again.

And the hospital would probably want to put him in the psych ward or shove him off to a loony bin.

Like Dean was about to let that happen. When their dad got back from his supplies run, he hoped to have a little more success in getting Sam to get something of nutritional value in his stomach.

Until then, he watched Sam pretend to sleep with his back facing him and clenched and unclenched his fists. Seeing Sam in such a bad state made him wish he could resurrect Davies just to kill him again. He wished that he could bring back Jerry just to burn him alive again. He wanted Rich back in his grasp so that he could flay the skin from more than one leg.

He wanted to hunt down Liu. He didn't know the specifics of what he'd do to Liu once he had him, but he figured that between John and himself they could get pretty creative.

Sam must have fallen asleep, because he wouldn't have rolled over to face Dean otherwise. He saw the signs of a nightmare settling in Sam, and leaned forward to run his hand through Sam's hair out of habit. But he froze when he remembered that Sam's hair wasn't long enough for that anymore.

Sam hated having short hair. That was why Dean made a bet with him where the loser had to shave their head (and he knew that he was right). That had been traumatizing enough for the kid, so Dean couldn't imagine how it was when his hair had been forcibly shaved as part of his slavery.

He couldn't imagine how Sam dealt with any aspect of having his independence and free will stripped from him, two of the main components of his personality.

Dean sat and wondered what was left in Sam. What did the traffickers leave behind? He knew bits of what they instilled. But even if he didn't know the specifics, he knew that none were good things.

"How is he?"

Dean looked over at Jim in the doorway and shook his head. "He's not getting better, and I don't know how I can help him," Dean said, keeping his voice as soft as Jim's to avoid waking Sam.

Dean moved to stand in the door beside Jim, easier to talk without worrying about Sam hearing or Jim not being able to hear him.

"I don't think he was awake that long before I went down to the kitchen—and I slept a long time, even went to bed after him. So I know he had to have slept for more than a day. Then, he came right back up here the first chance he got to lay there again," Dean continued. "I can't tell if he even realizes that he isn't back there anymore. He's just so shut off from the world."

Dean didn't add how much that last part scared him. The doctor in Chengdu mentioned that Sam had been closing in on overdose territory, what if that meant Sam would never be entirely there anymore? What if it damaged the know-it-all brain that Dean loved to hate?

"He went through more in a single month than some people go through in their entire life," Jim said. "None of it is easy to recover from."

"I know," Dean said. "I just… this is all my fault. I have to be able to fix it."

"Patience and love, Dean," Jim said. "Sometimes, that's all we can offer."

"It doesn't feel like enough," Dean said. He wanted a plan. Something concrete. He needed a course of action laid out so that he knew what to do next. Right now, he felt more like he was trying to find purchase to avoid being swept away in the current of icy rapids. "Some of the fuckers responsible are still alive, and I can't even go hunt them down."

"Does Sam know?"

Dean shrugged and said, "Like I said, I don't know if he even knows that he isn't there anymore."

Jim clapped Dean on the shoulder and didn't add anything more to the conversation.

* * *

Dean only left Sam's side when John returned about an hour later, and only because he wanted to see what he had to work with for helping Sam.

Caleb was helping him carry in bags from the truck and cover Jim's counter space with them.

"What did you get?" Dean asked. He expected them to come back with a bag or two, not twenty.

"Anything I thought we might need," John said. He glanced at all of the bags. "And probably some extra."

Dean browsed through the bags, expecting some of what he found, but still surprised by some of the items.

"Fruits and vegetables?" Dean asked. "I don't think his body is up to solids, not with how long it's been since he's eaten."

"Jim has a blender. Add some juice and maybe some protein powder and… well, it's better than him eating nothing."

Dean sighed and helped pull out and put away groceries. "Still won't get any meat back on his bones," he said.

"It'd be a start," Caleb said. "And we wouldn't have to worry as much about him starving himself to death."

Jim's kitchen ended up filled with bottles, packages, and cans of anything John imagined could help Sam in the slightest, and Dean appreciated being able to see John step up to the role of father that he sometimes pushed to the side for the sake of hunting.

He just hoped that Sam would be aware enough soon to appreciate it himself. To see how much John cared for him and that he was more than a man bent on revenge. Maybe that would be enough to repair their relationship that was beginning to crumble under the tension so easily built between them.

He took one of the bottles of protein shakes and reclaimed his spot at Sam's bedside. He glanced at the nightstand, where he replaced sleeping pills with the candy bars he swiped so long ago at a gas station. When he thought that they so close to Sam, only to find out they were half a world away. They stayed untouched, no matter how much Dean hoped that he would come back from a bathroom break or a forced nap to find that Sam ate one while left alone.

But it never happened, so they'd have to try another way to get him to eat. Anything to avoid taking him to the hospital again.

* * *

Sam woke up facing Dean, despite knowing that he went to sleep facing away from him. It was a habit that stemmed from a combination of not wanting Dean to see how broken he was now and not wanting to get his hopes up that his family did the improbable and rescued him from the club. That way when he woke up ( _really_ woke up), the disappointment wouldn't hurt quite as much.

Dean grinned and leaned closer the second he saw Sam's eyes open. He helped Sam sit up, but Sam didn't have plans to do that. If anything, he just wanted to go back to sleep. He wanted his sleeping pills back.

He hated when the others looked at him with faces full of pity, yet it seemed that all he could do was lay in bed and pity himself.

He understood the other boy now, the one who'd been with him under Jerry and Rich's care right before the auctions. He understood how someone could be so broken, so checked-out from the world around him.

"Think you feel up to a drink?" Dean asked. He reached over and grabbed something from the nightstand, and Sam tracked his movements until he saw what exactly Dean had.

 _Sam turned his head as far away as he could with it grasped in Rich's hand, so Rich gripped tighter and forced him to face Jerry._

"Sammy?"

 _Then there were fingers prying open his jaw and warm, vanilla protein shake being poured into his mouth. He gagged at first and tried spitting it out, but his head was tilted and a stranger's hands were in more control of his mouth than his own muscles._

Sour bile rose up his throat, and he was hunched over coughing and gagging, just waiting for it to make its appearance. Dean shoved a small wastebasket into his lap and guided his head to hover above it.

 _Rich held his jaw back shut when his mouth was full. Try as he might, Sam could not twist away or spit it out._

"Sam?"

"Dean, what's going on?"

 _It became a process of gagging and choking down mouthfuls of the shake against his will. By the end, he felt nauseated and his jaw hurt like it had been the victim of Dean's left_ and _right hook. With the gag back on, he prayed that he wouldn't throw up._

He didn't even know he threw up until he felt the warmth of the tears of physical exhaustion that accompanied it spill down his cheeks. This world, dream or reality, with Dean was supposed to be a reprieve from the nightmares, not a new rendition of them.

"Sam?" John asked. Both him and Dean were nearby, close enough to offer comfort, but far enough away so as to not startle him. "You okay now?"

They treated him more like a scared, injured animal than a human these days. Not that Sam blamed them, he didn't feel very human at all.

He shook his head.

"Are you done with the wastebasket for now?" Dean asked instead.

Sam nodded at that, and Dean passed it off to John. Sam didn't envy John ending up with the task of cleaning it.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean said. His voice shook and the confusion of the questions he wanted to ask, but couldn't, filled his eyes. As much as he tried to put on a mask, Sam could always see through it and Dean thought that this was far from okay.

"We'll just have to try something else. No big deal."

Sam didn't need to look at Dean to know he was lying.

* * *

Two weeks, and Sam still had yet to make a sound that wasn't due to him gagging. Dean slowly learned what threw Sam back into his memories, but the list was long enough to make his head spin just thinking about it.

Pills being offered, but not being left for him.

Protein shakes (that reaction still haunted him, but Sam couldn't even explain it to him).

Tea (despite the claim on the box that it was supposed to be calming).

And too much more.

Dean found his best bet was with his dad's idea. Smoothies loaded with protein powder and anything else he could shove in them without it being too noticeable. If he helped Sam sit up and set the smoothie on the nightstand, Sam would drink it at his own rate. Usually not in its entirety, but sometimes more than half. That was a small victory, but Dean would take it.

Even though he was getting some nutrition, Sam didn't seem to be doing much better in any other aspect. Dean couldn't help him as much as he wanted, not unless Sam decided to talk to him. He didn't know what was wrong otherwise.

He saw how it was wearing down on his dad, too. Sam never had a problem that Dean couldn't fix before, and John was just as lost as to what Sam needed from him. He tried to be there for Sam, and sat with him when Dean was reluctantly sent to bed. He tried to coax Sam into talking. Into doing anything other than act like a puppet with its strings cut.

Dean still took over most of caring for Sam, but he knew that John was there to back him up when needed (and that ended up being more often than Dean would like).

Caleb left days ago, taking the bus all the way to Massachusetts to get the Impala and bring it back to Jim's. John didn't say that Dean earned it back, but he felt that was the last thing he deserved. If John kept the keys from him for awhile longer, Dean understood why.

Jim offered what help he could, but he had a parish to run and other hunters to help. Besides, he was doing them a huge favor just by letting them hole up at his place for the time being.

When Dean switched places with John in the morning, he didn't expect the day to be any different than the past fourteen. He never thought that a constant in his life could be freshly depressing each morning.

So it was a pleasant surprise when Sam sat up in the bed of his own will for the first time since they arrived at Pastor Jim's, and Dean waited in the chair beside him with bated breath. After so long of Sam being checked-out from the world, he was finally showing some awareness of everything around him. Some days, Dean thought that would never happen. That Sam would be suspended in whatever awake, but unaware, state he'd been trapped in.

But he was finally looking at Dean with eyes that said they comprehended his presence. That said they knew that he was there. They didn't look through him this time.

Sam brought one of his hands up to brush his fingers against his throat (right above the burns, Dean noted) and swallowed hard a few times, a series of actions that Dean had never witnessed him doing before and wondered what they meant about Sam's slavery. What happened to cause them? They had to be related to his burns, right?

He wanted to call out Sam's name. He wanted to give him every reassurance that he could, but he was afraid to be the one to break the silence. He was afraid that it would cause Sam to sink back into himself.

In retrospect, that might have been better than having to hear what Sam had to say after so long not speaking. What Sam had to say in his raspy whisper of a voice that made each word sound that much more painful. Better than the way that Sam had to force out each word like they physically hurt him. Like he was afraid of them.

"Dean," he said.

Dean hovered close to him, trying not to grin at the fact that Sam spoke. And not only did Sam speak, he'd addressed Dean.

"Yeah, Sammy?" he whispered. He kept his voice soft and calm, unwilling to scare Sam away from speaking again.

"Am I dead?"

* * *

 **Author's Note Part Two:** Well, here's the start and the long beginning of a story author's note! It was very difficult to find a balance to start this off. I wanted it to be more of an overview of where Sam and Dean are at and how the recovery is barely starting to begin, but I also wanted to include John, Jim, and Caleb at least a little bit. I'm sure John especially will be a bigger character as we get more into the story. And I somehow wanted to balance it all without the chapter being boring, so here's hoping that worked.

You might be wondering why Sam is talking again after only two weeks. Well, it's not something he wants to do, but he needed an answer.

Bad news/good news. It's finals season, so updates likely won't be as frequent as they were for _Leave Normal Alone_ yet. I will still do my best. Good news: plenty of time to write once finals are finished.

Please take a minute to review and let me know how I did with the start!


	2. Dreams of Fire

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Oh, no.

No, no, no, no, no.

Dean thought that Sam might be having issues realizing that he wasn't in the factory or club anymore, the kid had been pumped full of drugs by the time they got to him. Dean expected the confusion.

But to be trying to figure out whether or not he was even alive? Dean wasn't prepared for that one.

Sam was watching him with saucer-wide eyes, and every moment he hesitated answering hurt more than it helped.

He forgot how to breath, and his reply came out as more of a croak than as words. "You're alive," he said. He cleared his throat and tried again, hoping Sam would be able to understand him. "You're alive."

He really needed to talk to his dad because this was _not_ okay. Sam thought…

Dean realized that Sam's pleading eyes were replaced with ones filled with resignation and drooped down, away from Dean.

And no, no, no, no, no. Why resignation? Shouldn't it have made Sam feel better to have confirmation that he was alive and with his family (Jim and Caleb included)?

Sam looked like he was about to lay back down, but Dean couldn't let him. Not like this. So he grabbed Sam into a bone-crushing hug. His injuries were mostly healed (physically), but they'd been careful regardless and this was the most contact Dean had with Sam since arriving at Jim's.

"You're alive, Sammy," Dean said. "We got you out. You know that, don't you? You _know_ that."

Sam didn't bring his arms up to return the hug, but he didn't push Dean away either. Maybe Dean should have been more wary about physical contact with Sam. He didn't know what could set him off at any minute, but he seemed fine so far.

Dean hoped that he was fine because Sam recognized he was with him. That Dean would never intentionally hurt him.

He rocked Sam back and forth, just like he did when Sam was a kid waking up from nightmares that weren't as fictional as he once believed. "I'm sorry," he said, but the words didn't feel like enough. So he said them again and again, and there was so much for him to be sorry for.

And he _really_ needed to have a talk with their dad. If Sam was bad enough off that he couldn't tell if he was even alive, then John needed to know as soon as possible.

Dean didn't know how either of them were going to fix this, but he knew that he could hold onto Sam and tell him over and over that he was alive. Alive and safe.

But Sam was like a rag doll in his arms, and he wished he knew whether or not his words were getting through to him.

Sam trembled in his arms, but Sam always trembled these days—never due to the cold. It was Dean who was racked by sobs, because it was Dean who messed up so badly that his little brother no longer even knew if he was alive.

* * *

"You know," Dean said, "I've been wondering why you never chewed me out. I mean, you lectured me in the truck right after, but…"

 _"I'm having a hard time even looking at you, Dean," he growled out after several minutes of silence. "You were supposed to watch out for Sammy, but you went to the bar instead! Why the hell did you leave him there alone?"_

John sat in the chair beside Sam, while Dean laid on the other bed without sleep seeming to be an option for the next few hours. All of his broken sobs from earlier wore him out, but his body had yet to catch up and let him rest.

"I didn't want to lose both of my sons," he said.

"I deserved it," Dean said. "Still do, probably."

"Let's not get into that right now, Dean," he said. They both kept their voices at a whisper for fear of waking Sam.

Dean took a deep breath. He wasn't ready to talk about his earlier almost-conversation with Sam, but his dad needed to know. "Sammy talked earlier," he said.

It was dark in the room, but enough streetlight streamed in through the window that Dean saw John looked over his shoulder at him. "Why'd you wait until now to tell me?" he asked.

"He asked if he was dead, Dad," Dean said. "I wouldn't have told you at all if you didn't need to know. I don't even want to think about it."

"He say anything else?"

"No. Just asked, and I told him he was alive. I thought that would make him feel better, but he just looked resigned. What the hell are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know, Dean," John said. "You know, it makes me wonder how many people we left after a hunt that ended up like this. The ones who survived, anyway. How many of them were so traumatized by being victims of supernatural circumstances that they couldn't function afterwards. It's never something that we had to deal with. Our job was always just to get rid of the thing victimizing."

"What about Mom?"

"You boys were too young, and I know I didn't handle it well. I wasn't even the victim, Mary was," he said.

Sam's shifting brought their conversation to a halt until they both felt that he'd settled back to sleep.

"He talked, though," John said. "That's a start."

"Yeah, maybe."

Dean didn't want to call that a start because he didn't want to remember Sam's question, even though it echoed through his mind.

" _Am I dead?"_

"Do you think that's why he took so many sleeping pills the other day?" Dean asked. "Because he thinks he's dead?"

"It's possible. You took them away, right?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "I offer him some at night, but he never takes them. Only if they're left where he can grab as many as he wants."

John sighed. "Two weeks to get him to ask a single question," he said.

Dean knew that Sam wouldn't bounce back from everything right away, but he didn't expect it to take this long for him to do something as simple as speak. He watched Sam sleep, who was oblivious to the conversation about him, and wondered if Sam would ever be able to fully recover from this.

* * *

 _Sam knew he was dreaming because it was the same nightmare that gave him a small break from memories of Liu's club and Davies' factory. The same nightmare that he had more and more often since Dean got him out. Which, according to Dean, really happened. He wasn't dead._

 _This was the nightmare that felt different. It felt more real than the nightmares of events that actually happened._

 _He ran through the woods, trees on either side of him ablaze. He called out for Dean and his dad, but doubted they heard him. That was assuming they were even in the same place as him._

 _He didn't feel the heat of the flames, or any pain if he ran through them. But no matter how far he ran or which direction he went, the woods expanded endlessly._

" _Dean?" he yelled. "Dad?"_

 _He saw it in the corner of his peripheral vision, but he knew it was no trick of his own mind. A pair of sickly yellow eyes were staring at him. But every time he looked to try and catch them, they disappeared behind the fire and the trees._

 _That was new._

" _Who are you?" Sam asked. "I know you're there."_

 _It amazed him how easy it was to speak in his dreams. He just wished that he could still speak that easily outside of them._

" _You're my favorite, Sam."_

Sam sat up with a gasp, the words still ringing in his ears. He didn't know that voice. He didn't know why he saw yellow eyes.

He didn't know how the man knew him, or why he would be his favorite.

A heavy hand rested on his back, and he turned to see his dad sitting on the chair that Dean was usually in. A single glance over John's shoulder was enough for Sam to see Dean in the opposite bed, dead to the world and softly snoring. It was strange to be always watched by someone, but Sam found himself welcoming it and the extra feeling of safety it brought.

"Nightmare?" John asked softly, as though he didn't already know the answer.

Sam nodded. He still felt the heat of the flames, even if they didn't burn him. He just couldn't figure out why that dream, a dream of events that never actually happened, felt more vivid than any dreams he had of his time in the hands of traffickers and slave owners.

"Wanna talk about it?"

Sam shook his head. He couldn't talk about it even if he wanted to, not when his vocal cords tightened to the point of being painful every time he tried. It was a miracle he managed to get a question out to Dean.

John smiled a bit. "I didn't think that it'd be that easy," he said. "Dean told me that you asked him a question, but you still don't want to talk, do you?"

Sam raised his hand and touched the burns on his neck. He wanted to tell his dad that it wasn't a matter of what he wanted. This strange on-off muteness wasn't his choice.

The only bright side was that his mind felt a lot clearer. There were still a lot of blurred memories at the edges, some of them begging for notice like they were important, but he just couldn't get a clear idea of what they were.

"Does it have to do with those burns?" John asked.

Sam nodded. He wondered if John was seeing him like just another scared witness for a hunt. He couldn't remember the last time his dad talked to him so gently. Even in the hospital, he was right there. He was exactly what a father should be when his child was hurt.

Whatever thoughts he had about that answer, John kept to himself with a silent nod.

"Plan on going back to sleep?" he asked.

" _You're my favorite, Sam."_

He shook his head. Even if he wanted to go back to sleep, he had a feeling there would be a man with yellow eyes waiting for him.

"Yeah," John said. "I was never good at getting back to sleep after nightmares either."

Sam never imagined his father would be the type to have nightmares. He was always the kind of person that seemed to have this barrier around him that evil couldn't crack.

What was it that haunted John Winchester in his sleep?

But John didn't answer, because Sam couldn't ask.

He itched for a way to communicate, but the most sound he could get out was a pathetic half-cough that made it seem like he was being strangled.

* * *

He liked the smell of coffee and was silently thankful that he found the strength to follow his dad downstairs and sit at the table as a fresh pot brewed. It was a strong scent and a reminder of 'home', where John and Dean always found a way to get their caffeine fix and so very different from the smells that suffocated him for that horrible month away.

He wasn't given any coffee, which was alright with him. With how his stomach twisted and churned at the remnants of his nightmares, he didn't think he could keep anything more than water down anyway.

Like he knew Sam's thoughts, John set a glass of water on the table in front of him. Unlike Dean, John didn't flutter about trying to figure out any little thing that Sam needed, trying to stay two steps ahead when he was always at least one behind. He waited and watched, only getting something when he knew for sure it was necessary.

They were coddling him, he knew that. Maybe he needed it, maybe he didn't. He kind of figured that he wasn't in the right mindset to decide that one. He wasn't in the right mindset for much other than functioning on a basic level.

But Winchesters weren't usually the type to coddle, and that had to mean that something was really wrong. It was new territory for all of them, having one of their own be so brutally victimized.

Dean didn't understand why he asked about his status as dead or alive. The living weren't supposed to feel as empty as he did, so how could he be alive?

They treated him like he was made of glass, but he needed them to break him just to remind him that he could be broken. He needed to be made to _feel_ because feeling anything was better than the unbearable emptiness that he felt since arriving at Jim's.

At least in the hospital, he had the pull and drug-reduced pain from his physical wounds to keep him grounded. What did he have now?

A glass of lukewarm water and his father watching over him like a hawk. Like he was going to disappear again at any moment. Some moments, he felt he might.

"Still don't want to try something other than a smoothie?" John asked. "We've got applesauce, soup, some other soft things."

Sam shook his head. Smoothies never really sounded appealing to him either, but they didn't bring back any memories at least. He wasn't sure what foods would. He wasn't sure what memories that had been unclear so far would surface and when.

John sat in the chair across from him and sighed, a steaming mug of coffee opposite of Sam's glass of water. "I figured as much. You'll have to try eventually though, Sam. You can't live off of smoothies forever," he said.

Sam shrugged. He could live off of smoothies, technically. The real problem should have been the question of _how long_ he could.

"You cold?" John asked after a bout of silence.

The sun was starting to come up and peek through the window shades, but it was too bright. Sam didn't realize how badly his head was pounding until then. He didn't realize how cold he was either until John asked. Hadn't even noticed he'd been shivering.

John helped him up and guided him to Jim's couch with a mutter of "Damn, Sammy. You're burning up."

He got a pillow and some of the blankets from Sam's bed, then turned on the TV and took a seat on the recliner.

The change of room was kind of nice, and Sam was thankful for the background noise of the TV. Sometimes his bedroom was too silent.

His dream made sense now, at least. He had a fever, of course he would dream of being surrounded by fire. Of course, it would feel different from a normal dream. Fever dreams usually did, and who knew how long his body had been trying to fight off the sickness before the fever manifested? It would easily explain the weird dreams that gave him a break from his memories.

He just wished that logic was enough to wipe away the lingering memory of that voice speaking to him. Declaring him as his favorite, but he didn't even know what that meant.

* * *

Waking up to find an empty bed opposite of him was becoming all too common of an occurrence. He knew he'd find Sam downstairs with their dad, but there was always a moment of panic until he actually _saw_ Sam downstairs with their dad.

This time, he ended up on the couch with Sam asleep against him and wrapped in blankets. Dean didn't mind. Really, he didn't. But his little brother was still traumatized and staying disconnected, and now he had a raging fever on top of that. The list of things that were so wrong now was long enough that Dean didn't know where to start making them right.

Sam wasn't sure that he was alive. Dean could keep reminding him, but it never made Sam look any happier.

Sam spoke once so far. It wasn't much, but Dean could accept it as a start. It was certainly more to work with than he'd had the past two weeks they spent at Jim's.

Sam wouldn't eat anything substantial. Dean didn't think that force feeding him would be a bright idea, but Thanksgiving was coming up soon, and Sam had always wanted to celebrate it like a normal family. Dean hoped that would be enough to get him to at least try eating, and he remembered Jim's cooking being pretty good.

With their moving before he was taken included, Sam hadn't been at school for about two months. Normally, that would have been a huge cause of distress for Sam. Dean remembered how it was bad enough when he would miss a handful of days between moves. Sam would sit in angry silence for days because of it, pretending that neither Dean nor John were there at all.

Since they found him, school didn't seem to be anywhere on Sam's list of shit to worry about. Not that Dean could blame him, because school really was the least of Sam's concerns for the time being, but it was always so important to him before. The fact that it wasn't anymore kept driving home the extent of how messed up Sam was now.

He was Schrodinger's Sam. Both alive and dead. Dean prayed he'd be alive when he finally found out how to open the box and let out everything that was currently buried within him. It wasn't going to be anything good, but Dean would be there for him.

"Ever feel like the world has it out for Sam?" Dean asked as John reentered the room with a cup of coffee for each of them.

Pastor Jim was out at the church, but Dean wondered if he was just giving them time to work it out as a family, or if he was as lost as they were.

"More than I'd like to," John said.

"I mean, after everything he just went through, he gets a fever, too? That's just not fair."

"I know, Dean."

 _He sat in the Impala, and everything would be right in the world if Sam wasn't in a sour mood next to him and correcting that it's 'Sam', not 'Sammy'._

" _Whatever," Dean said._ _"Look, I get that you had some girl you were interested in—and I guess she might have been interested in you, too—but you knew going into that town that we weren't gonna be stayin' long."_

" _I know, Dean."_

 _D_ _ean had to really try to not roll his eyes. It might seem silly to him, but whatever happened in the last town must have meant something to Sam._

 _"It's easier to learn to not make any real connections. Hurts less when you have to break them,"_ _he said. It was the only advice he could really give on the topic. He just found it easier to distance himself from strangers than Sam did, but still enjoy their company._

" _I know, Dean."_

That was only a matter of days before Sam was taken, and Dean would've given anything to go back to that moment and listen to Sam's bitching. Hell, Sam could bitch all he wanted, as long as Dean had the chance to stay with him and not let him be trafficked.

"You give him anything for it?"

John looked at Dean with raised eyebrows. Half-amused. Half-disbelief. "You think he'd take anything I gave him?" he asked.

"I hoped."

Dean turned his attention to the TV playing the morning news. He was glad that, in Minnesota, the missing children's story wouldn't be coming up again. He didn't want to see the faces he couldn't save.

He didn't want to see Sam's face on the screen among them.

Sam didn't need to see his own face on the screen. He didn't need to see that they'd had to involve the police (for all the good that did).

"He hasn't said anything about school," Dean said.

John turned his attention to Dean, and Sam beside him. "He's not in any shape to go to school."

"But doesn't it feel wrong for him to not bring it up?" Dean asked. "You remember how he'd get when he missed days when we were moving."

"Of course, I remember. I used to think that it'd be so much easier if he just wouldn't argue with me about every little thing," John said. "But never like this. I'd take the constant head-butting over him being so… empty."

"It's like they just drained everything that made him Sam. And I'm just waiting for the moment when he breaks. He can't stay distant forever, and he'll have to come to terms with everything eventually, but I don't think it's going to be pretty."

"He's a strong kid, Dean. Always has been. Maybe he'll pull through better than we expect."

"Do you really believe that?"

John shrugged. "I have to believe it."

Dean felt Sam shift, and looked to see the signs of a nightmare creeping in. Not that it was unusual these days for Sam to have nightmares, but he wished that the world could give Sam just one break.

Was that too much to ask for?

* * *

 _Bits of the factory rained down around him, coated in fire. All he could smell was a horrible mix of blood, rust, and burning flesh._

 _He knew how old houses made of rotting wood smelled when they were on fire. The same for skeletons that were wrapped in rags that were once clothes, Wendigos (his least favorite), plastics and metals that made up an object to which a spirit attached itself (always seemed to be the pendant of a loved one), and fields (he and Dean really hadn't meant to set one on fire with fireworks)._

 _He knew how flesh smelled when it burned, because that was one of the few clear memories from when he was tucked back in Liu's club. It was the only way to get invasive hands off of him before they went too far._

 _Someone told him once that it was an unforgettable scent. Too distinct to be mistaken. But all monsters smelled the same when they burned. Wendigo. Human. It didn't matter._

 _He couldn't walk on his own, his leg was injured (and his back and probably his spirit). He remembered that much. 14710 helped him escape, but when he looked at the ground, 14710 was laying beside him. His eyes were still open, but there was no life in them._

 _How was he supposed to get out now? He recalled that he didn't want to escape when it really happened. But if he kept going, if he survived, Dean would find him._

 _Didn't Dean hold him and cry not too long ago? For all his talk of Sam being a girl, he wasn't making a strong case for himself not being one. Sam tried to point it out to him, but he couldn't get a sound out. He couldn't even move his limbs._

 _If he thought about it, he felt like a prisoner in his own body. He was only free in his dreams, which were usually of times when he was far from free._

" _They're coddling you, aren't they?"_

 _It was that voice again. Sam scanned the room for yellow eyes._

" _You need them to break you to set you free."_

" _They're doing their best," Sam defended. Dean and John always did their best when it came to him, even if he disagreed with their idea of what that meant._

" _Or you could strengthen your connection with me. Break out of this zombie-state yourself."_

" _Leave me alone."_

" _But, Sammy, you're my favorite."_

Sam woke up, and would've fallen off of Jim's couch without Dean's quick reactions.

"Woah," Dean said. "You okay, Sam?"

Sam looked back at Dean, who said, "Right, dumb question."

He couldn't remember what his dream was about, or what about it freaked him out so much, but there was something important he should remember. He just knew that something wasn't right about it. Something felt evil about it.

It brought Liu's face to the front of his mind, the closest definition he knew for the word 'evil'. The way he was half laying on Dean didn't help when that image was brought up.

 _He almost didn't notice that his head was pillowed by Liu's leg, not until Liu's hand fell onto the top of his head and ran over the semi-longer hair just starting to grow back._

 _Had the hands belonged to someone else, the gesture might have been comforting. Loving. As it were, Liu's touch made his skin crawl and left him nauseated._

Dean repeated that gesture now, but Sam pulled away and sat up on his own (though he admitted that the back of the couch was being a huge help).

It was only when Dean was gently shaking him by his shoulders with wild, panicked eyes and his dad crouched next to him that Sam realized he was breathing too quickly. He tried to regain control of it, but Liu's face and touch wouldn't leave his mind, and it was choking him.

"Dean," he gasped out, "is Liu dead?"

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Dean and John are still doing their best to find their footing in the situation and how to deal with Sam's question, but Sam is detached and plagued by weird dreams and flashbacks. And a fever. And now Dean has to break it to him that one of the men who tormented him the most is not dead. Fun!

This is probably the first time I've written Sam and Dean without separating them within the first chapters/them already being separated in the beginning of the story. It's new and strange!

Thank you to everyone who read, favorited, followed, and reviewed so far! Also, thank you to the wishes of good luck on my finals. I have more to go, and I'm so ready to just have them be over.

Leave a review before you go?


	3. A Normal Christmas

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **Warnings:** Self-inflicted harm via mirror punching.

* * *

"We would've killed him the second we came across him, I swear, Sammy," Dean said. "But we never came in contact with him."

He watches for Sam's reaction with his breath held. To hear that one of the men who put him through severe trauma was still alive couldn't be easy. That knowledge certainly wasn't easy on Dean.

It scared him that he couldn't read what Sam was thinking at that moment. Whatever emotions and thoughts passed through him were unrecognizable, until they settled on a single one: hate.

"Sammy?" he asked.

Sam never had pure hate in his eyes, not like that. Dean knew that he changed after everything (who wouldn't?), and he had every right to hate the people who put him through it, but it just wasn't _Sam_. It wasn't the Sam he remembered.

He wrote it off as the effect of a combination of fever and trauma, but deep inside he knew that this was real. This was the first time that Sam trapped inside himself broke out enough to show any significant emotion at all.

It scared him a little.

"We'll get him, Sam," Dean said. "I swear, we're gonna keep track of him. And when we find him, he'll wish he was never involved with you. He'll wish he was never born."

The hate didn't leave Sam's eyes, and he just nodded.

Dean looked over at John, who watched with the same amount of worry. Neither of them knew how to deal with the stranger that Sam had become, and Dean just wanted the Sam he lost back. He wanted Sam to smile and be a moody, rebellious teenager who worried about school and girls.

He didn't want Sam with hate in eyes that looked dangerous. He didn't want Sam who refused to take care of himself, who probably wouldn't even eat if he wasn't given a liquefied version of whatever they could liquefy to keep him alive without it tasting horrible. He didn't want Sam who barely talked, or who was covered in marks that left him lost in his memories.

There were a lot of things that Dean didn't like now, but he couldn't forget that he was the reason Sam was in a state he hated.

If only he could write it all off as being caused by Sam's fever.

* * *

Sam suspected that he missed something important that week, and was fairly certain that something was Thanksgiving. But he definitely hadn't felt up to trying to eat anything of substance, less-so than he had for the two weeks prior without his fever. So he laid in Jim's living room while everyone else sat at the kitchen table and tried to not look like they were watching him while they ate. Even Caleb's usually light-hearted and sarcastic attitude was gone, replaced with a strangely serious Caleb.

Sam, by the time his fever broke a week after it started, felt absolutely disgusting. That led to a scalding shower.

Which led to him standing in front of the bathroom mirror with his skin visible. Jim put a space heater in the bathroom for showering as the weather got colder, so this was the first time that steam hadn't fogged every reflective surface. The brands on his shoulders and the tattoo on his arm were horribly prominent in the same way his ribs were. If he twisted enough, he saw the marks on his back from where he was whipped. The cut on his leg healed nicely, but the scar remained. There were still faded marks on his chest, and he remembered trying to scratch something out of it, but nothing ever came out.

Everything about his reflection looked grotesque and sickening. He was glad that he was allowed a little bit of privacy, such as when he was in the bathroom (even if he knew that Dean was right outside the door), because seeing the pity on the faces of his family, Jim, or Caleb when they saw him would be too much. Especially when he could see that he _did_ look like something that should be pitied.

 _"Davies' task masters thought he was some sort of spirit," Liu said, his voice mocking. "I don't think he's a spirit, but I don't think he's human either."_

Liu's words hadn't originally registered in his addled mind at the time, but he found himself agreeing now. Whatever it was that stared back at him in the mirror wasn't a human. It wasn't a spirit. Despite his extensive knowledge of things that aren't human, he couldn't find a term that would fit him.

 _Freak._

" _We can be freaks together, Sam."_

Amy.

It felt like he met her in another lifetime, and he wondered how she was doing. Better than him, he'd guess. All the time he spent worrying that his family would catch her trail and hunt her, when they ended up having to hunt _him_.

How long would it be until they had to hunt _him_? How long could he keep his secret?

He balled his hands into fists as he stared at the mirror, eyes filled with hatred. Hatred towards Liu and Davies and Jerry and all the other men who took him from his family. Hatred towards himself for letting them turn him into a monster.

Hatred towards himself for not taking Amy's offer of running away and being freaks together.

The mirror shattered when his fist connected with it. He didn't realize he still had enough strength, even with how he hadn't been properly eating. He didn't realize he was punching it until he already had.

The shards crashed to the floor, but a few of them embedded themselves into his hand and left it bleeding.

Dean burst into the room a second later, wild-eyed and ready for a fight. He glanced at Sam, then the missing mirror, then the floor, then at Sam's bleeding hand, and finally back to Sam.

"What the hell, Sam?" he asked. "Did you punch the mirror?"

Sam looked at his hand and flexed it. The hatred he felt moments earlier hadn't left a trace behind, and the sting of the cuts was all he really felt. The emptiness was suffocating and frustrating. He needed to _feel_. Anything at all. He needed to be able to hold onto emotions for more than spurts of a minute or less.

He nodded at Dean.

"Why?"

He shrugged.

 _Humans talk. They use their words._

"I… I don't know," he said. How could he explain to Dean that he hated what was looking back at him so much, he couldn't stand to have it there anymore?

Dean looked surprised. Whether it was from the situation in general or the fact that he spoke, he didn't know.

"Let's clean up your hand, at least," he said.

Sam let Dean guide him to sit on top of the toilet seat, and waited while he got the first aid kit. He cleaned and bandaged Sam's hand, then continued wrapping the bandages up until they covered his tattoo as well.

Sam stared at the mirror shards throughout, ignoring Dean's worried and increasingly frequent glances. Ignoring how Dean's eyes lingered on each cut and visible rib. He felt bad about ruining Jim's mirror.

"Sam," he started, but he never finished his thought.

Dean looked at his chest, then. Sam put his sleep pants on, and was about to slip his shirt on when he caught sight of himself in the mirror.

"What are those scratches?" he asked. "Did that happen, uh, during all of _that_?"

Sam nodded, he just didn't bother mentioning that they were self-inflicted.

Dean sighed and handed Sam his t-shirt from its place folded on the hamper, but hesitated for a minute. "You need help with it?" he asked.

Sam shook his head. He could still dress himself, at least.

"Right." Dean stood. "Better let Jim know that he needs a new mirror and get this cleaned up. You wanna go into his library and hang with Dad for a bit while I take care of this? At least, I think he's still in the library."

It was Dean's polite way of saying 'I think you need to be watched right now. And I know we've been keeping an eye on you nearly twenty-four-seven, but you've hurt yourself'. Sam didn't call him out on it. He simply nodded and left the room wondering when the next burst of emotion would arrive.

He might not be human, but he spent fifteen years pretending to be one before he was taken. He could learn to pretend again.

* * *

After Thanksgiving, and when it was officially December, Dean asked Jim for Christmas decorations. And for a man who preached about the true meaning of Christmas and about it being the birth of Christ, he certainly had a lot of commercialized Christmas decorations in his attic as well.

Dean would take what he could get, and hoped that he could put together a decent Christmas for Sam. John was in on the plan, and offered his help if Dean found himself needing it.

John was about as happy as Dean had been about Sam punching Jim's mirror, and they kept an even closer eye on him since, but he hadn't hurt himself in any form since then. He still wouldn't say why he did it, just shook his head when asked.

Sam laid on the couch and watched TV while Dean put lights on an artificial Christmas tree he found among Jim's decorations. It wasn't overly big or extravagant, but it was more than they ever had before.

"You're gonna help me put the ornaments on, right?" Dean asked.

Good days were the ones where Sam summoned enough strength to speak when he answered questions instead of just nodding or shaking his head. They were the ones where Sam tried eating small bites of simple, soft foods (like applesauce). On those days, Sam moved around more of his own freewill (but never far from Dean, which Dean was perfectly okay with) and he was completely aware and interactive with the world around him.

Bad days were the ones where Sam didn't seem to know where he was. He still moved around, and he still talked, but he moved erratically. Dean had to focus all his attention on following Sam around and making sure he didn't get lost or hurt, because he was certain that Sam didn't know Dean was even there. Wherever Sam went on those days, it wasn't a good place. He'd mumbled under his breath. His ramblings were mostly nonsensical, but sometimes Dean caught snippets that made him wonder how much Sam went through that he wouldn't speak about. How much he would never speak about.

The only good part about both good and bad days was that Sam moved with ease. So his physical injuries were healed well enough. The problem was that Dean was afraid that he'd turn away for a second on a bad day and lose track of Sam all over again. On good days, he never had to worry about that. He knew that Sam would only leave his line of sight to use the restroom.

The worst days were the ones where Sam was despondent. He laid or sat wherever he was guided to. His eyes were so empty that Dean sometimes wondered if he was aware or even alive. Dean spent a fair amount of time on those days checking Sam's pulse just to make sure it was still there.

He paused with the lights and looked over at Sam on the couch, who gave no indication he'd heard Dean at all.

It was going to be one of the worst days.

"Jim only has a bunch of the colored ball ornaments, but we could stick some candy canes on here, too. Mix it up a bit," he said. If Sam still registered his words, great. If not, well, Dean would never know. So he kept talking to Sam when anything came to mind, just in case.

He looked back at the tree, half covered in multi-color lights. This was what Sam always wanted: normal. He wanted to celebrate the holidays like a real family, not with whatever holiday special local pizza places were offering while their dad was out at another bar, trying to drown memories of the perfect family he'd lost by drowning himself in alcohol.

It apparently took severe trauma to give Sam what he wanted for years and for John to place hunting lower on his priority list. But if Christmas ended up not being one of Sam's good days, it wouldn't matter that they'd celebrated at all.

He worked on finishing with the rest of the lights, hoping that Sam's bad and worst days would become less frequent as he learned to cope.

But Dean was used to not getting what he wanted.

* * *

Sam sat in Jim's library again, by the fireplace this time. He was just enjoying the warmth while Dean was in the next room, claiming that he was wrapping Christmas presents and Sam wasn't allowed to peek. But Sam also wasn't allowed to be too far away, so he ended up alone in the room adjacent.

The last time Dean gave him Christmas presents, they were toys for girls. He hadn't meant to, and he really felt bad about it, but that didn't take away how excited Sam was when he learned he would get presents. It didn't take away the disappointment from when he saw what the presents were.

Sam wondered if he was supposed to get presents for anyone, but he didn't know if that was an option. Dean wouldn't take him to a store, and Sam didn't want to leave the safety of Jim's house anyway.

There was a tree in Jim's living room now, but Sam couldn't remember when Dean put it up and put lights on it. They still had to put ornaments up, but Christmas was still a couple of weeks away (he was pretty sure about that, but could never be certain about which day it was anymore).

He heard Caleb's voice in the other room, too. He'd been back to his normal self, always giving Dean shit about everything he could. But he was always cautious around Sam, like he was walking on eggshells. Part of Sam hated it, and he knew that two months ago it would've upset him to be treated like he was so fragile. But now, he couldn't find it in himself to care or try to prevent it. Were he being honest, he felt pretty fragile still.

Were he being honest, he suspected that he would always feel a measure of that fragility, like the cracks that had been made from being trafficked would never be filled in again.

He read about a Japanese art form that made broken pieces of pottery beautiful again. Kintsugi might work on pottery, but Sam doubted that his cracks could be filled with powered metals to make him whole again.

Dean must have noticed those feelings because sometimes he said, "Don't worry, Sammy. We'll get through this."

And Sam wanted to believe him.

He flipped through pages of the book Dean grabbed from a shelf and shoved into his hands without actually looking at the words. If Dean had wrapped presents in the library, Sam could've watched TV instead of sitting with a book he didn't plan to read.

So his book sat on his lap, mostly ignored, while he stared at the fire. It was mesmerizing, and it wasn't until it filled the entire area of the fireplace and threatened to spill out and swallow the room that he noticed he was controlling it.

The sudden realization made him lose his grip on the flames, and they died off until only smoke was left.

He stared at the charred firewood until Dean opened the door and stepped in the room.

"Wasn't the fire going?" he asked. "It didn't take me that long to wrap a couple of presents did it?"

Sam let Dean ponder about the fire, or lack thereof, but didn't say a word.

* * *

 _He was in Liu's club and he couldn't move, but no one dared enter it when half of it was on fire. He tasted alcohol and the remnants of the strange chocolate flavored tablet that refused to fade no matter how many hours passed. He felt the heat, but the flames never hurt him._

" _Don't you want to know what happened here?"_

 _Sam looked around for yellow eyes, the set that voice belonged to, but his vision was too blurred to make out anything clearly._

" _I can take the filter away. I can make it so you remember every last detail with perfect clarity," he said. "I can break you, and I can help rebuild you. I can make you stronger."_

" _Get out of my head," Sam said. "I don't need your help."_

" _Maybe not," he admitted, "but you'll want it. Soon enough, you will."_

" _I won't."_

 _The man didn't answer, but Sam yelled 'I won't' over and over._

Sam gasped awake with Dean's hands on his shoulders, shaking him, and his blankets tangled around his legs. His room was dark, but he didn't need the light to see the worry and fear in Dean's eyes as he hovered over him. He'd seen it enough since he'd been back, after every nightmare, day or night.

"Sammy?" Dean asked. "You awake now?"

Sam nodded, but he realized Dean probably couldn't see it. He pat one of Dean's arms, and his grip vanished.

"Must have been some nightmare," Dean said.

Dean gave up asking for details a long time ago.

"It was the first time that you yelled real words while asleep," he added. "You just kept screaming 'I won't'. Dad will probably come barging in any minute now. Maybe Jim and Caleb, too."

It was Dean's way of saying that he'd been loud enough to wake up everybody in the house. Except himself, apparently.

"Sorry," Sam rasped out. "I'm sorry."

Dean's arms wrapped around him and pulled him so he was half-sitting, but mostly leaning, against Dean. He said, "You have nothing to apologize for, Sammy. You never have to apologize for any of this. _I'm_ the one who's sorry. You have no idea just how sorry I am. For all of this."

"Never blamed you."

Dean just held on tighter. He probably still blamed himself, even if Sam didn't. Just like Sam was still sorry, even if Dean told him he shouldn't be.

He just didn't know what he was sorry for.

* * *

The next couple of weeks leading up to Christmas were strange. He helped Dean hang ornaments on a Christmas tree, which, despite being fake, was the realest one he'd ever had. They watched crappy Christmas movies with overly predictable plots (Dean enjoyed adding in his own commentary). John was around more than he'd been in Sam's entire life (that he could remember, he imagined John was around a lot when they were too young to take care of themselves for more than a few hours), sitting and spending time with them.

Jim cooked family dinners where they all sat at a table to eat food that didn't come in paper or foil wrappers and grease-stained bags.

Caleb dropped by frequently between hunts, always with a story that had details omitted depending on what he thought Sam didn't need to hear (but his hesitance and the way he stuttered over words when he left something out always gave him away).

Then Christmas came, and Sam felt an odd mix of excitement and anxiety. It should have been perfect. Dean, John, and Jim were doing their best to make it perfect for him.

If he felt anxious, then Dean's constant glances at him weren't helping. He was pretty sure, contrary to his brother's apparent belief, that he wasn't about to disappear into thin air from Jim's house.

It was strange to sit around a tree where everyone had a present to unwrap, no matter how poorly wrapped they were (and Dean's took the cake there with the mess of tape and folds of excess wrapping paper he used).

His dad gave him a cell phone, and Sam realized then that he had no idea what happened to the one he used to have. It must have gotten lost somewhere between Massachusetts and Chengdu, and he really didn't have to use his imagination to figure out how that could happen.

"Thanks," he said softly.

John smiled and gave him a pat on the shoulder, words not necessary.

Dean got a silver knife from their dad, just like the one he used to keep under his pillow. Sam never knew what happened to it after he tried fighting off the traffickers with it. They never told him, and he'd never been up to asking.

Pastor Jim gave him a charm he didn't recognize with the promise that it was meant for protection from evil, and Sam knew he had enough evil in his life to put it to good use.

He opened Dean's last, and struggled to find the present under the layers of wrapping paper. And even when he found it, he looked at Dean in confusion.

Dean got him sleeves? They were just made of black cloth, and Sam wasn't sure what else they could be.

Dean pulled up his right arm sweatshirt sleeve and unwound the bandages he'd been using to hide the tattoo from Sam. He slipped the weird sleeve over Sam's arm, covering it from wrist to elbow.

"See?" he asked. "Better than bandages, right?"

Sam nodded. The cloth was soft and didn't call too much attention to itself. Since he only needed to cover his right arm, getting a pair was pretty much a two-for-one deal.

"Thanks," Sam said.

Dean shot him a grin brighter than Sam had seen since Dean found him at Liu's. He leaned over and ruffled Sam's hair, and Sam was glad that it was long enough to ruffle now.

Sam felt a little bad that he hadn't gotten anyone anything, but no one seemed to mind. No one other than him, at least.

* * *

Caleb showed up at Jim's in the afternoon, conveniently skipping the time to open presents (and using the classic 'oh, you shouldn't have' when Jim gave him a present anyway). By then, the entire house smelled of warmth and holidays (though most of it could be attributed to Jim making a traditional Christmas meal while John did his best to help with his limited culinary abilities).

It was a weird feeling to not have anything expected of him. Everyone else just seemed happy that he was there at all, even if he was just watching movies on the couch with Dean (whom he suspected was given his usual role of babysitter for the day) while everyone else set to making a meal.

Dean offered Sam a drink of hot chocolate, but the smell was enough to make him almost gag. He shook his head, and somehow managed to keep his composure.

He just couldn't trust chocolate-y things anymore. Not yet. Besides, Dean drank more than enough of it for two people.

The meal was nice, Sam imagined. Everyone else ate more than enough food for a single person.

Sam picked at the food, ignoring the not-so-subtle, worried looks they gave him. No one called him out on it, and he wondered if that was just another side effect of being so broken that they were afraid one wrong word, one wrong action, would shatter him.

* * *

The day ended with eggnog, the warmth of a roaring fireplace, and sharing stories of past hunts. By all definitions of the word, it should have been perfect. But Sam saw that the perfection was more of an illusion than anything. Smoke and mirrors designed to try and give him one of the things he'd always wanted, one of the aspects that composed a normal life.

They all tried, but Sam knew none of them could give him that normal life. That was made clear the first time he conjured fire with his mind. The first time he realized that he couldn't really be a human, no matter what he'd been told all of his life.

And he still couldn't get the words of the man with yellow eyes out of his head. The words that he kept hearing in dream after dream, no matter if he dreamt about Davies' factory or Liu's nightclub.

" _I can help you remember every last detail."_

" _I can help break you so that you can be rebuilt stronger."_

" _You opened the connection to me."_

" _You might not need my help, but you'll want it soon enough."_

Every night, it was the same chorus of cryptic lines spoken differently, but all had the same meaning. The same implication that Sam held a connection to a mystery with yellow eyes, and the same implication that he would want the man's help. But everything about the man screamed at Sam not to trust him. There was something wrong about his presence, something inhuman.

Sam knew that his family was doing their best to not break him, so he decided that he would find a way to shatter himself.

He _needed_ to find a way to shatter and rebuild himself, before he ended up falling into the temptation of the stranger's offer.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** A belated Christmas chapter! I'm so sorry it's so late. This one also covers about a month of time, and now we get into more about Sam and his powers. Now that he actually has the will to try and fix himself before he finds himself wanting a stranger's help (on good days, at least).

Merry Christmas, friends!


	4. Auld Lang Syne

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **Warnings:** Language and mentions of possibly sensitive topics (nothing beyond short mentions, though).

* * *

Dean started spending his time on Jim's computer in the library when Sam slept on the living room couch. That way, he could still keep Sam in his line of sight.

Sometimes, he looked up stories of trauma survivors and advice on how to help them. Most of the time, it left him with a sour taste in his mouth. He _was_ being supportive. He _wasn't_ being judgmental. Sam knew he could talk to him about what happened, but Dean wasn't pressing him for details. He was doing everything listed on the websites. Sam had been getting better, but so slowly that Dean wondered if there was something beyond his ability to help with going on. He wondered if Sam would always been stuck in a state of 'getting better'.

He switched his research to anything that involved Liu or human trafficking. Of course, no details were readily available online about Liu (that he could find), but he never expected it to be that easy. Liu had proven to them that he knew what he was doing, probably more than Davies had. His searches revealed that 'Liu' was a fairly popular surname. Besides that, he didn't have a first name for him or knowledge that Liu's last name was 'Liu' at all. How many times had they masqueraded under different names?

The most he could find were articles about Liu's one club in Chengdu being busted for keeping sex slaves in hidden rooms in the basement. The manager took the fall for it (willingly or forcibly, Dean could only guess), and Liu was only mentioned as the owner and claimed to take all actions required of him in such a horrible situation (Dean rolled his eyes at that).

He closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips into his tear ducts until they hurt. He needed to pick up on a trail that led to Liu, because he had a feeling that none of them would consider this mess finished while he still lived. They couldn't really put this behind them until they got rid of the lingering threats that came with Liu's continued existence in the world.

Dean looked up and saw his dad on the other side of the living room. John glanced at Sam as he passed, joining Dean in Jim's library.

"What are you up to?" he asked, keeping his voice quiet.

"Trying to find something about Liu, but we don't have much to go on," Dean said.

John looked at the screen from over Dean's shoulder. "Bobby and Jim have all the hunters they trust the most keeping an eye out for human trafficking. We're hoping that we can find Liu that way. If he came here for an auction once, it isn't far-fetched that he would come again. We just need to know where."

John took the mouse and scrolled through some of the pages and glanced at the other tabs opened in the web browser. "You were reading trauma and trafficking survivor stories?"

"I thought I could find something that might help me help Sam."

"Did you?"

Dean sighed. "No. Everything listed on those websites is what I've already been doing. I just want him to be better."

"I do, too," John said. He ran a hand over the scruff of his beard. "Maybe we should take him to see a professional."

"What? No!"

"Dean—"

"No, Dad," Dean said, cutting him off. "We're _not_ taking Sam to someone who's just going to want to pump him full of pills, which he will refuse to take, or lock him away like he's crazy."

"I'm just saying that we might not be properly equipped to handle something like this, Dean. We should keep our options open. For Sam."

"No, he's getting better with us."

"Dean," John said. He used the same tone he used to when Dean was a child and he was trying to explain something important. "It's been about what? A month and a half? And he just started talking again. Yes, he is getting better. I'll admit that. But he's getting better so slowly, don't you think it might help if we took him to see someone who specializes in dealing with trauma? Someone who's able to handle it better than we can?"

"He was gone for a month, Dad. He spent _a month_ feeling less than human because some bastards took him from his bed in the middle of the night. Of course, it's going to take him awhile to recover from that!"

It wasn't lost on Dean that it should be Sam arguing with their dad, not him. But Sam hasn't argued with John in a long time now, and it was Dean arguing on his behalf.

"But," Dean continued, "he is going to recover with us, not some stranger just because he has a fucking piece of paper framed and hanging on a wall claiming he's better than us!"

"Are you so against the idea because it really isn't what you believe is the best for Sammy, or are you just being selfish and afraid to admit that we are in over our heads with this?" John asked.

Dean didn't have an answer to that, but it only made him angrier to hear his father accuse him of being selfish. Hadn't John been selfish in not telling him the whole story in Massachusetts? Hadn't John been selfish by taking them on the road and dragging them all over the country trying to catch something, especially when they didn't fully know what that something was beyond that it killed Mary?

He looked over into the living room, and all of the anger drained out of him when he saw Sam.

Because Sam's eyes were open and staring right at them.

"Sammy," Dean said.

He got up and moved closer, but Sam got up faster and left the room. Dean glared at his dad before he followed Sam up the stairs, but Sam had already made it into the bedroom they shared and shut the door.

He knew the door couldn't be locked, there was no lock on it. But he also knew that he shouldn't just barge in on Sam. Pre-trauma Sam would have hated it, and he suspected post-trauma Sam wouldn't be too happy either.

This was the first time Sam consciously left his side (or at least line of sight) on a good day.

He knocked on the door. "Sam," he said. "Sam, let me in. Let's talk about this."

Before everything, Sam would have taken that offer, the rare opportunity to talk a problem out with someone who didn't generally talk things out.

Now, he wasn't so sure.

* * *

Sam knew that the way he'd been barely coping wasn't easy for Dean or John to deal with, but he never knew just how difficult his recovery was on them. If anything, hearing their conversation reaffirmed his belief that he had to figure it all out on his own before he succumbed to the offer of the man with yellow eyes.

Dean was knocking on the other side of the door, asking for admittance and to talk through what Sam overheard.

Sam didn't want to talk about it. He couldn't blame Dean or John for how they felt. For how he was making them feel. He couldn't blame his dad for wanting to get him professional help. It was all reasonable, and he didn't want to talk about how unreasonable he felt for not wanting any help from strangers. But he opened the door anyway and let Dean step in to take a seat next to him on the edge of the bed, despite the overwhelming desire to slip out of the window and find refuge with Pastor Jim in the church next to the house.

Dean closed the door behind him, but Sam wouldn't have put it past their dad to be listening on the other side. Though this time, he might have decided against invading his sons' conversation.

"How much did you hear?" he asked.

Sam shrugged, but Dean understood. He'd heard more than enough.

"That's what I thought. Sam, look—"

"Don't," Sam said. "Just don't."

He didn't want to hear Dean try to justify the things he and their dad said because they weren't wrong. Neither of them were wrong. He was getting better, but so slowly. They weren't as well-equipped to handle something like this as a trained medical professional. A shrink who would want to hear his story, pump him full of pills, then leave him to rot in the loony bin.

"Do you want to go see a professional?" Dean asked softly, like it hurt him to say. "If you'd rather go talk to one, if you think it would help, I'll take you. We'll set up an appointment and whatever."

Sam shook his head. He didn't think that a shrink would be able to help him. He couldn't exactly tell one about fire and yellow eyes, and those were the things he knew he needed for recovery. He needed to solve their mysteries. What did the man with yellow eyes want? What connection did they have that he mentioned? Why could he start fires with his mind?

Dean breathed out a sigh of relief, and Sam almost rolled his eyes. Of course, Dean would be relieved. He would get Sam any help Sam thought he needed, but he would never want to admit that Sam was going through something where he wasn't enough to fix it.

"You know, if you want to talk through any of it, you can talk to me, right?" Dean asked.

This time, Sam did roll his eyes. "I know," he said.

His voice was still more of a whisper than anything, and every time he heard it he was reminded that he was different at every level of being. Too much about him changed in the month he was gone (and he still had a hard time believing that it was only a month no matter how many times Dean and his dad told him, it felt like much, much longer).

"Is there anything you wanted to talk about?" Dean asked.

Sam had to give him credit for not trying to pry details out of him. He knew Dean wasn't very patient, he never had been, but he was being as patient as he could be given the circumstances. Sam knew the lack of information, all the missing pieces of what happened to Sam between the night he was taken and the night he was rescued, had to be killing him.

"No," Sam said.

"Sam," Dean said, "it might help."

"Don't even remember all of it," Sam said.

And that was his problem. He couldn't help but feel he needed to remember it all before he moved on, but he had no idea how to jump start his memories. Wasn't memory repression a form of defense the brain used? How was he supposed to dig up memories his brain locked away because it deemed them dangerous to him?

But what if the memory loss was because of the drugs he'd been forced to take? Were those memories able to be regained in any capacity?

Dean's hand on his shoulder and worried look told Sam that he'd been zoned out for too long. "You back with me, Sam?"

Sam nodded.

"It might be better that you don't remember all of it," Dean said. "I don't think those memories are things you want hanging around in your head. You don't need that."

Sam shrugged. Maybe Dean was right and he didn't need that. But he needed a starting point to so he could begin answering all of the questions he had, and that was the only one he could think of.

* * *

For the first time, Sam laid awake in his bed instead of trying to sleep. It was equally likely that the yellow eyed man would appear in his dream as it was that his dream would be a run-of-the-mill nightmare (at least run-of-the-mill for someone who went through the things Sam had). He didn't want to take the chance of hearing the man's offers, and the man could never offer anything if Sam wasn't asleep.

For the first time, Dean was asleep in the opposite bed and John was asleep in his own bed as well (or up researching a hunt or whatever else caught his attention). It had been an unspoken agreement that he didn't really need someone watching over him while he slept anymore. If he had a nightmare or needed something, Dean was still just a matter of feet away in the same room.

He couldn't keep sleep away forever, but he did have tools to control his sleep so that it would be blissfully devoid of anything other than darkness. He just needed to work up the courage to ask Dean for those tools. He needed the courage to accept that help, and put aside any memories it brought back. But maybe they would grow clearer each time they were forced to the forefront of his mind and he would know if there was significance to them.

He took a deep breath and got out of his bed to shake Dean's shoulder.

It took a couple of shakes to get a response, but Dean finally rolled over to face him and yawned. "Sammy?" he asked. "You need something?"

His hunter instincts were obviously not alerting him about any danger if he was that groggy when awoken by Sam, who half-expected that he might need to dodge the slash of a knife pulled out from under Dean's pillow.

"Sleeping pills," Sam said.

Dean sat up, a little more awake. "You wanna take the sleeping pills?" he asked. "You know I'm not giving you the bottle, right? Just the proper dose."

"I know."

Dean got up and out of bed, shuffling Sam back to sit on his own bed before he left. Of course, he wouldn't want Sam seeing where he had the sleeping pills stashed. He took a couple extra one night, and he can't be trusted with them anymore. But Dean didn't understand what the dreams were like, whether they were nightmares or the strange ones that spoke of connections and rebuilding.

Dean came back with a couple of pills and a glass of water, and Sam felt much more like a child than he had in a long time. Dean used to bring him medicine in the middle of the night when he was sick and coughing until his throat was raw from whatever virus had been floating around the area.

Sam took the pills with hands shaking so badly that Dean had to help steady the glass of water so that he wouldn't spill it everywhere. He just couldn't stop the image of Liu offering him unknown tablets, or the image of the girl sitting next to Liu. He couldn't remember exactly what she looked like or why she was there, but he had a feeling that her presence was important. He needed to remember why she was there when she was just another of Liu's possessions, too.

"You gonna be okay, Sam?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded, but he wasn't entirely sure himself.

He laid down to wait for the pills to kick in. Dean brought the blankets up to tuck under his chin, then pulled the wooden chair he'd spent so many nights in over to Sam's bedside to add one more night to the count. Sam hadn't asked him to stay up and watch over him, but he found himself thankful for it.

No matter how old he was, there was still a childlike part of him that associated Dean with safety. And after all he went through, that feeling of safety was one of the things he needed.

* * *

A few days later, Sam found himself sitting at one of the pews in the church next door where Pastor Jim held mass and services (or just talked to those who came in for praying or a break somewhere sacred). Dean was right next to him, even if he made it clear through the years where he stood when it came to religion.

This place used to give Sam comfort, and he remembered spending days trailing after Pastor Jim as he told him stories from The Bible while taking care of his parish. He remembered stories of angels and goodness to offset the darkness that filled his life. He remembered praying in hopes that something—anything—better than the monsters he faced on a daily basis would hear him.

Jim came and sat by them on the pew. "Hello, Sam," he said. "It looks like you're doing well this morning."

Sam shrugged. He left the safety and protection of Jim's home to go to the church, but the church was so close that he wasn't sure if that counted for much.

"It's a good day," Dean said.

'It's a good day for him' is what he meant.

Jim just nodded. "You know, Sam, a lot of people come here for guidance during difficult times in their lives."

The church was more modest than some Sam had seen through the years, more wooden decorations than gold. But like most he'd seen, the windows were made of stained glass portraying significant events. His eyes lingered on one window where Jesus had fallen, bloodied and sweat-soaked from carrying his cross, then he looked at the crucifix over the altar at the front.

"I used to," he said. "I used to think that there had to be a God, because there was too much darkness in the world for it to be devoid of light. But I think now that it doesn't really matter. If it's all real, then God didn't save his own son from suffering. Why would he save someone like me?"

If Pastor Jim had a response to that, Sam never heard it. He got up and left the church, Dean trailing after him.

* * *

New Year's Eve was one of Sam's bad days, but Dean supposed that having both Christmas and New Year's be good days for Sam was a bit much to ask.

Dean followed him around as he stumbled through Jim's house, muttering nonsense under his breath. Maybe it wasn't nonsense, though. Maybe if Dean could decipher some of it, he could understand where Sam was during those days. He sure as hell wasn't at Jim's, not mentally.

Dean gripped Sam's shoulders and steered him away from a wall before he ran right into it. Sure, Sam walking into a wall might have been funny months ago, when he would have simply been too distracted by something else to see it. But when Sam moved around like he really didn't know the walls were there, when he moved like he was in a completely different place, it wasn't so funny.

John appeared and walked alongside him. "Dean, look at him," he said. "He needs help."

He hated that they talked about Sam while he slept, but it felt worse to talk about him while he was fully awake, even if he wouldn't register a word they said.

"He doesn't want to go get help," Dean said. "And I'm not going to force him to do something he doesn't want to. He's had enough of his freewill robbed to last a lifetime."

"You asked him?"

"Yeah, after he overheard us talking about him. He didn't want any explanations, but he didn't want help either. Says he doesn't even remember all of it."

John ran a hand down his face, looking like he hadn't had a good night's sleep in a long time. "We have to do something," he said. "There has to be some way to help him with this."

What Sam said in the church to Jim made Dean feel that there might _not_ be a way to help him fully, that there would always be pieces of Sam missing. Of course, Dean understood losing faith. His mom used to tell him angels were watching over him, but then she burned on the ceiling and his faith burned with her.

But Sam shouldn't have lost his faith. He was supposed to be bright and innocent, still just a kid.

 _"But Dad we could still help them. They're just_ _kids_ _," Dean said. He glanced at Sam as he said it, still just a kid._

Dean could hardly believe how long it'd been since he said argued with his dad about helping missing kids. He could hardly believe how messed up everything had become since then.

"We're going to Sioux Falls after New Year's," John said, breaking the silence that had grown between them.

"I thought you said we'd stay until Sam was ready to leave," Dean said. He knew that offer had been too good to be true the second his dad said it, but he'd hoped. He'd hoped for Sam's sake.

"I know," John said. "I still would, but Bobby thinks he has a few leads on traffickers that he wants to go over. Something that might lead us to Liu."

Dean pressed his lips into a thin line. He didn't want to uproot Sam, who was still mostly unwilling to even leave the house. At the same time, the opportunity to track and find Liu was one he did not want to miss.

"Bobby's place has always been like a home to you boys, too. Sam should still be okay there. He doesn't even have to leave the house if he doesn't want to. But if this keeps up for too long, we need to talk seriously about taking him to get help," John said. "We hunt, Dean. We can take out what caused his pain, but we can't get rid of it. Not on our own."

"Give him more time. He's getting better, and we knew it was going to be slow going in. People don't just bounce back from shit like this."

A slow recovery, sure, but Dean never expected to feel like he was thrown into the middle of the ocean, floundering and doing his damnedest just trying not to drown.

If John was about to reply, Dean never knew. Sam turned around and looked Dean directly in the eyes, his own with a wild and crazed look in them. "Did you save her?" he asked.

"Who, Sammy?"

"The girl. You got her out, didn't you?" Sam asked.

Dean looked away from Sam to John, and found John staring back at him.

"Do you have any idea who he's talking about?" John asked.

Dean shook his head. "No, he never mentioned a girl or saving somebody else at all."

"You saved her, right?" Sam asked again. "Right?"

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean said, if only to placate him for now. It would just be another question that he would have to ask Sam when Sam was actually in the present and knew where he was. "We saved her."

Sam nodded, satisfied with that answer.

Dean just wished that he could get some answers of his own for once.

* * *

Dean sat on the couch, where Sam laid sound asleep after Dean couldn't stand seeing him so out of his mind that he crushed sleeping pills into water and slipped them to Sam. He felt guilty, but that guilt didn't hurt as much as watching Sam so unhinged.

He had the TV on with the New Year's Eve broadcast from New York City playing. So many people packed into one place for a massive party. Dean wasn't sure if he'd enjoy or hate it. Sure, there would be plenty of pretty girls looking for someone to kiss at midnight (and maybe do a little bit more after), but so many people in one area made it that much harder to keep track of any possible threats.

He took a long drink from his beer, the first he'd had since the night Sam went missing (which took the spot of the worst night of his life). So many people were compacted into Times Square without a care in the world, and he was sitting and doing his best to keep his world from falling apart.

The roar of the party on TV grew louder as the crowd started the countdown to midnight (in New York, it'd be another hour until midnight in Blue Earth). There were fireworks and the ball slowly moved down as each second ticked away until it reached the bottom, and the crowd really went wild.

The camera flashed from kissing couples to party-goers yelling until they lost their voices to fireworks filling the sky.

Dean sighed and changed the channel. He looked at Sam, as oblivious to the world around him while asleep as he had been during that day. He wondered if maybe John was right and Sam needed to see a professional, no matter how much he didn't want to. No matter how much Dean didn't want him to.

He raised his beer bottle towards Sam, as though Sam would return the gesture with a drink of his own in a silent toast to the new year, before he took another drink. "Happy New Year, Sammy," he said, despite the remaining hour of New Year's Eve. "I hope to hell it's a better year for you than this last one."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Happy New Year, friends! Sam is hunting for memories, while John and Dean are hunting for Liu. I'm sure both of those hunts will go wonderfully. Plus, Bobby!

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! If you could take a moment to leave a review before you go, I thrive on them.


	5. Little Breakthroughs

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **Warnings:** Language and references to violent and vaguely hands-y events that happened in Leave Normal Alone.

* * *

Sometimes, Dean felt that the Impala had been designed specifically for him. Everything about sitting in the driver's seat and guiding her on the roads felt _right_. He didn't even mind the snow on the roads making the drive a little more slippery. So he couldn't go over the speed limit like he usually did and had to actually be careful. It wasn't a big deal to him. In fact, he felt it was a small price to pay for the privilege of driving Baby once again.

The one thing that bothered him was Sam.

When he suggested that Sam could lay in the back and sleep through the trip, Sam lost all color and looked ready to have a heart attack. He quickly discarded the idea and settled Sam in the passenger seat, but Sam checked out from the world anyway. He once again left Dean with more questions than answers.

Dean tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, following whatever pattern came to mind and humming along softly. He didn't turn the radio on. After Sam's earlier panic, he didn't know what about car trips would set him off.

It was easy to forget that the last time Sam was in a car, he was still under the effects of medicine slipped into his water by John. They hadn't had to worry about anything upsetting him because he wasn't coherent enough to realize what was happening around him. A state that he returned to on his worst days.

So, Dean flicked his eyes between the road, and Sam curled up in the passenger seat with a pillow against the window. Dean couldn't thank Jim enough for giving them a spare pillow for the two hour drive, just in case Sam wanted to sleep.

Dean couldn't see Sam's face, but he was pretty sure that Sam wasn't asleep. Instead, he seemed to be using the pillow to hide himself from the outside world, pressing it against the window and burying his face in it. He kept his hood up over his head, and Dean noticed how his clothes seemed to hang on him. He remembered being able to see Sam's ribs when he patched up his hand after he punched the mirror.

He suspected that Sam hadn't gained back any weight since then. More likely, Sam was becoming thinner and thinner. Even with him trying to eat more, he wasn't getting enough.

Dean would just have to keep trying. The physical problems were easier to deal with. He could keep giving Sam calorie-dense foods. He could keep trying until he got Sam to eat more than one real meal a day.

But he still didn't know how to deal with the wounds he couldn't see. He didn't know how to stop the nightmares without pills. Or how to keep him from panicking at the smallest, most innocuous things that never bothered him before. He didn't know how to get Sam to open up to him, to talk it all through with him. That was something he didn't expect, because Sam used to always want to talk things out (especially if they were as big as this, but not always the little problems as he grew older).

"Hey, Sammy?" Dean asked.

"What?"

Not a touch of grogginess. Dean was glad he could at least still tell if Sam was awake and faking sleep.

"The other day, you asked me if I 'saved her'," he said. "I know you weren't exactly in your right mind at the time, but was there a girl somewhere along the line that you were trying to save?"

He glanced over and saw Sam's head turned towards him. He could practically hear the gears turning in Sam's head while he considered the question. While he considered how much to tell Dean. The last time he had that look, he was taken in the middle of the night.

"Look, Sam," Dean said. "I know you don't want to get professional help—no shrinks or loony bins, I promise—but you gotta talk to me, man. I can't help you if you don't let me. I won't even tell Dad a word of what you say."

"Liu was in my room at the club and brought a girl with him," Sam said. He didn't look at Dean and spoke so softly he almost couldn't hear it, but Dean was glad to be getting anything out of Sam. "I don't remember why, but I think something important happened. I don't remember her number either, but I think it started with a five."

The dreaded image that Dean walked in on when he rescued Sam flashed in his mind again, and he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "Why was Liu in your room?" he asked through grit teeth.

The rage that filled him made him want to yell his questions and demand answers, but he knew he had to keep his grip on his emotions. He really wouldn't be able to handle Sam being afraid of him. It was bad enough seeing the raw terror in his eyes when he woke up from a nightmare, and that wasn't even directed at Dean.

"He gave me… something," Sam said. "Pills from an unlabeled bottle. I don't remember much else about that."

"Benzodiazepines," Dean said. "The doctor in Chengdu drug tested you and found that you'd been given them. A lot of them."

Sam had been lucky that it wasn't the meth that Liu gave him large doses of. At least benzo overdoses were usually not fatal, especially with medical attention. He'd hunted Sam's doctor down one of the times John forced him to go find something to eat at the hospital and asked her about the drugs she found in Sam's system.

That was how he learned about a drug that was a mix of meth and caffeine, and apparently popular for prostitutes to take in some areas. That was when he decided that Sam didn't need to know those details.

Dean was beyond glad that Sam finally opened up to him, even a little bit. But when he looked over at Sam and saw how miserable he looked slumped in his seat and back to hiding himself from the world, he wondered if it was worth it. Could he handle it if every time Sam talked about his experiences ended with him looking like a kicked puppy?

If it helped Sam in the long term, he wasn't sure that not handling it was an option at all.

* * *

The last time Sam was at Bobby's house ended with Bobby shoving John out of the door with a shotgun trained on him. He never knew the full story of what happened, and he just remembered being woken up in the middle of the night by Dean saying that they had to go. He was too tired and still half-asleep, so he went without arguing.

He wished a number of times over the years since then that he had argued and learned what happened between his dad and Bobby, but he never expected to be back at Bobby's house. He definitely never expected that their return would be his father's suggestion.

Being back wasn't as comforting as he thought it would be, but a lot changed since he last saw Bobby.

No, just him. He changed a lot since he last saw Bobby, and he wasn't sure it was for the better.

Dean parked the Impala among the many cars currently stashed at Bobby's, and sent Sam off into the house. No one expected much of him these days, and it left him with a strange feeling.

" _They're coddling you, aren't they?"_

He could stop the yellow eyed man from entering his dreams by taking sleeping pills, but he still couldn't get rid of the things he'd already said. He couldn't stop his words from echoing through his head every day.

The worst part is that they were true. His family was coddling him, and it was moments like when he was shoved into the house while John and Dean took care of their bags that reminded him of that. None of them had ever been through something so bad that it elicited such a response.

Sure, Sam had been hurt on hunts before that left him relying on his family more than normal, but those times were usually filled with Dean poking fun at him and John trying to get him back into motion as much as possible.

Bobby was waiting by the door when he entered the house, and he looked exactly like Sam remembered.

"Hey, Sam," he said. "Been awhile."

"Hey, Bobby," Sam said. He wasn't sure if he was still 'Uncle Bobby' after whatever it was that happened between him and John, but he supposed that it was a good sign that they were allowed in Bobby's house in the first place.

He watched Bobby's face carefully for any sign of the pity that he thought would inevitably appear, but none did. There was just sadness there, and Sam felt it, too. Sadness about the circumstances that brought the Winchesters back to Singer Salvage.

"I got a fire going back in the library, although it's turning more into an office these days. Why don't you go on and warm up? Let your daddy and brother do the work for once."

Sam managed a half-smile and left. His dad and Dean usually did do the work, but Bobby was trying to keep it lighthearted for Sam's sake. He appreciated it, he did. He just hated being brushed off. Being sent away like an invalid. Maybe that was how they all saw him now.

It made the silent rage in him flare up again, the same one that made him shatter Pastor Jim's mirror. His life before being trafficked was far from perfect, but he felt like a prisoner in his own mind now. A prisoner to the numbness and lost memories that were so difficult to break away from. The memories that suffocated him and stole him away from reality.

He wanted to go back to feeling human, even if he wasn't. He wanted to go back to when he wasn't afraid that his sleep would allow unwanted visitors into his head.

Instead, he went into Bobby's library and sat in front of the fire. He pulled books from the tops of nearby stacks and started flipping through them. If anybody had information about creatures that can invade dreams, it would be Bobby.

It didn't take Dean long to take a seat on the floor next to Sam. "Whatcha doin', Sammy?" he asked.

"Reading," Sam said.

"About what?"

Sam shrugged. "I was just looking for something," he said.

"What were you looking for?"

Sam sighed and closed the book on his lap. "It doesn't matter," he said. "I didn't find it."

* * *

Dean, John, and Bobby poured over the paper clippings and map laid out on Bobby's kitchen table.

Sam picked up clippings at random, present but not really included in their discussion. He wanted to see if he saw any of the kids whose pictures appeared in the articles at the auctions, factory, or nightclub. He wondered about the boy who was so quiet and so obedient. The boy who was dragged all the way to the silent auctions with him.

"Not surprising, but a lot of the leads are connected to larger cities," Bobby said. "A lot of people. A lot of potential victims. A lot of space and abandoned buildings on the outskirts. Loud and busy at all hours. They're the perfect places to hold operations like this."

"But we weren't in that large of a city when, uh, it happened," Dean said.

Sam pretended that he didn't see how Dean looked at him, like the mention of anything related to his being trafficked would break him.

"I didn't say it only happens in large cities," Bobby said. "Just that it's more common."

"Besides," John said, "Sam was taken to a larger city to… be sold."

This time it was John's turn to give him the same look Dean did.

When Sam took his eyes off of the clipping in his hands, he found all of them looking at him with varying degrees of concern. He hated it.

He _hated_ it, and that brought back the mess of anger in him.

"What?" he asked. "If you're going to talk about it, then just fucking say it. I was taken out of bed in the middle of the night and sold to be someone's _property_ for one hundred thousand dollars. And that was only after plenty of potential buyers came to get an up close and personal look at the _goods_."

 _Since Williams left, other potential buyers had come and gone. Sam still felt the paths their hands traced across his skin, looking for features that suited the needs of their business. His price tag slowly rose and sat at thirty thousand, courtesy of the man who put his hands…_

 _Sam refused to think about it. How it all felt clinical and dirty at the same time. How his face burned red in shame under the inspection of each new set of hands._

"They had me tied to the damn chair in a little booth," Sam continued. The words had burst out, and now he couldn't stop them. "I couldn't move much more than my fingers and toes, and with that collar around my neck I couldn't make a fucking sound. You told me I was gone for about a month, and that was just one day, but it felt longer. It felt so much longer."

 _They brought him back to the processing warehouse and dragged him inside once again. Unlike the day before, there was no line of children waiting to have their heads shaved. Instead, the inside was divided with cloth curtains that had numbered signs above them and Sam couldn't see what went on behind them, but he knew it couldn't be anything good._

 _Jerry and Rich led him into one of the little makeshift booths ('18166' was written on its sign) and sat him in the single chair occupying it. He wasn't surprised that it had restraints and that they were immediately fastened to keep him in place. He knew to expect it now._

 _None of them talked, though Sam couldn't have if he wanted to. The silence made it so that Sam could catch faint sounds of sobs muffled through the layers of curtains separating everyone. He felt like part of a show he didn't know he was participating in, waiting for the red curtain to split open and reveal his audience._

By the end, they were all staring wide-eyed at him. He didn't know when tears started falling, but he felt them making tracks down his face all too clearly in that moment. Without his rage to fuel him anymore, he dropped the newspaper clipping in his hand and left the kitchen, shutting himself in the room he always shared with Dean when they stayed at Bobby's.

* * *

Dean couldn't stop repeating Sam's outburst in his head until he heard the bedroom door slam shut. He looked at his dad and Bobby to find they looked to be equally in shock.

It was the first time Sam spoke so openly and emotionally about what happened to him while he was gone, and none of them knew how to respond to it. It was something that they'd been hoping for, Sam to let them help him carry his burdens, but how were they supposed to help when they could barely process his summarized recollection of _one day_. If anything, it once again brought more up more unanswered questions.

If Dean felt like he was dropped in the middle of the ocean and doing everything he could to stay afloat before, he definitely felt like he was drowning now.

John jerked his head towards the staircase. "Go, Dean," he said. "It's you he's gonna need."

He knew Sam needed their dad, too. He just needed each of them differently, and John had never been the one to handle emotional issues. He'd rather deal with physical problems, he ones where he could see the effect of his work. Like how he could see stitches closing a deep cut.

Dean was a little hesitant since the last time his dad and Bobby were left alone ended with a shotgun threat and leaving in the middle of the night, but he didn't argue. He spared a glance at the clipping Sam had held and saw that some of its edge was missing. It looked like it'd been scorched away.

Bobby probably kept it a little too close to the fireplace, he thought. But at least Bobby caught it before all of the information they needed went up in flames.

He took the stairs two at a time and knocked on the closed bedroom door. "Sammy," he said. "C'mon, let me in."

He didn't hear any movement on the other side of the door. The only sounds came from downstairs, where John and Bobby were still talking. But they weren't yelling, so Dean took that as a good sign.

"Guess I'll just wait here, then," Dean said.

He leaned against the wall, and slowly slid down until he sat on the floor. The mood swings were newer, but Sam seemed to swing into anger from his emotional numbness more than any other emotion.

Dean ran a hand down his face. Was this normal for traumatized kids? Did Sam even count as a normal traumatized kid?

One hundred thousand dollars. They put a price tag on Sam. It might have been more money than Dean had ever seen, but he would always choose Sam, safe and sound, over the money if he had to. The problem was what kind of toll going through being sold like an object, and then treated like property afterwards, did to Sam psychologically.

After they rescued Sam, Dean didn't think about much of what he went through other than what happened at the club or factory. He didn't think about Sam going through the process of being sold, but it was clear now that Sam never forgot it. Instead, he seemed to remember it in perfect detail, and Dean saw how he had a look in his eyes while recounting the experience like he was reliving it at the same time. Like he was finally able to go through it and say the words that he couldn't at the time.

Maybe John had a point that they weren't equipped to handle this, but Dean wasn't ready to admit defeat yet. He refused to believe that he wasn't enough to help Sam get through this. All of it.

Finally, the door opened a crack, and he turned to see one of Sam's eyes peeking out at him. He didn't move, better to not scare Sam away and make him shut him out again.

He really hated having to treat Sam like a scared, wounded animal. When Sam opened the door wider and let him in, he hated even more that it worked.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Dean said. "That you had to go through all of this."

He sat on the edge of his own bed, and Sam sat on the edge of the opposite bed. He didn't want to scare Sam away by being too close. He didn't want to risk ruining the small bits of progress he felt were being made.

Sam shrugged. "I'm sorry for going off like that in the kitchen," he said.

"No, Sam. You never have to apologize for any of this. Nobody goes through the shit you had to and comes out the other side unaffected," Dean said. "I can't imagine how it felt to be sold like that, but you have to believe me when I say that you're worth more than a hundred thousand. They could offer me a million dollars, and I'd still choose you every time."

He had a feeling it would take more than that to convince Sam. For whatever reason that Dean never managed to figure out, Sam had always been overly willing to doubt his own self-worth, even before being trafficked.

Sam ignored his words and changed the topic. "It was around then that I started believing that my fate had been sealed," he said. "They put me on a plane to Asia, and I was just thinking that there was no way you'd be able to find a trail to follow after that. I finally understood how all of the other kids disappeared so completely, like they just vanished."

"Well, we found Jerry and Rich, and that was the trail we needed," Dean said.

That got Sam's interest. His head snapped up from its drooped position and he looked at Dean. "Are they dead?" he asked.

 _John and Caleb hauled over Jerry and Rich, one after the other, and dropped them into the freshly dug hole. Neither were in fighting shape, but they were aware enough through their pain to be able to tell something was wrong._

 _Not that they could express those thoughts after John covered their mouths with duct tape before dragging them from the motel._

 _Caleb poured gasoline on them, the smell sharp and quick to fill the air. They tried to say something, but it was inaudible with the tape._

 _Maybe they would beg for their lives. Maybe they would beg for life because they have families who needed them. Children for whom they needed to provide. Maybe they begged for the chance to do that one thing they always swore they would, but just never had the time for._

 _But their pleas fell on deaf ears. Dean was certain that when it was the children who begged and plead, Jerry and Rich ignored them._

 _John took out the motel match book and lit it, tossing them into the hole atop Jerry and Rich. With the gasoline, they burst into flames quickly. Then the smell of gasoline was overpowered by that of burning flesh._

 _They let the bodies burn for awhile before filling in the new, unmarked grave._

"Yeah, Sammy. They're dead," Dean said. "And I promise you that they died in a lot of pain."

Sam nodded. "Good," he said.

Jerry and Rich were vile excuses for human beings, but Dean never imagined his brother would become someone who was glad to hear about a human's death. He was always trying to find the good in people.

It was just another reminder that Sam wasn't the same as he used to be.

* * *

Sam didn't take the sleeping pills that night, even though Dean offered them to him out of habit. Of course, Dean also wouldn't let him keep the pills if he wasn't taking them, so they were put back in their bottle and hidden from him once again. He still wasn't trusted when it came to his own health.

Dean considered staying awake in case Sam had nightmares, but Sam said he'd probably wake him up if he had one anyway so there was no use in depriving himself of sleep.

And when Dean finally fell asleep, Sam snuck out of the room to find Bobby, who was still up in his library office and pouring over books.

One of the floorboards creaked as he got closer and Bobby looked up.

"Hey, Sam," he said. He closed his book and put it to the side, giving Sam his full attention. "Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

Sam shrugged. "I've been sleeping a lot, and I'm kind of sick of it."

"Well, something on your mind, then?"

That was one of the things Sam liked about Bobby. He wasn't pushing and he wasn't acting like Sam was about to fall apart right in front of him. He was letting Sam set the pace and topic of conversation. He was acting like nothing was different.

"Are there creatures that can invade someone's dreams?" he asked.

Bobby looked a bit surprised at the question. "Well, course there are," he said. "Shadow people. Demons. Sometimes a shaman has the ability. Hell, sometimes even a ghost will haunt someone's dreams."

"Is there a way to tell if your dreams are being invaded?"

Bobby shrugged. "I could look and see if I could dig one up. Cases dealing with dreams are rare, but I suppose most victims don't want to sound crazy talking about their bad dreams like they affected reality," he said. "But, Sam, listen to me. After what happened to Karen, I had all sorts of weird dreams, most of them nightmares. There are some things that really mess with your head, and no one would blame you for having crazy dreams right now."

"Maybe you're right," Sam said, wishing he could believe Bobby and pass them off as nothing more than crazy dreams.

"But if you're staying up, why not help me get some research done? Got a hunter looking for some answers about a pretty bizarre hunt."

"Yeah, sure," Sam said.

Bobby handed him a book and set him to work.

"Hey, Bobby?" Sam asked after a few minutes of silent research.

"Yeah?"

"What happened the last time we were here? Between you and my dad."

Bobby laughed under his breath, but there wasn't much humor in it. "Got in an argument over the way he raised you boys. No one should be forced into a hunter's life, especially not children."

Sam nodded. He always knew that Bobby didn't agree with how John raised him, he never kept it a secret. That was why they always got to have a little more freedom when staying with him. Why they got to have a little bit of a real childhood.

Sam got some of the answers he was looking for, and a place to start searching for even more answers. Whatever was in his dreams was definitely not a shaman or a ghost. It was something darker. Something evil and inhuman. Something that had the shape of a man and yellow eyes. A shadow person or a demon.

But he _knew_ they weren't just crazy, trauma-induced dreams. He wasn't just losing his mind.

He _wasn't._

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Sam is getting closer to some answers, as is Dean. On the other hand, Sam is showing that he isn't in full control of his powers while in emotional distress. I mean, that couldn't possibly go wrong.

As always, thank you so much to everyone who follows, favorites, reviews, and simply reads! I always appreciate the feedback.

Leave a review before you go?


	6. Memories and Motion

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **Warnings:** Language, mostly.

* * *

By Dean's standards, things had been good for the past couple days. Mornings smelled like coffee, not the unpalatable motel variety (and eggs and bacon if he was lucky). Sam hadn't had a bad day since arriving at Bobby's. He was trying to eat more. He helped Bobby research cases for other hunters.

Since his outburst about the auctions, Sam still kept quiet about his experiences. But he proved that he would talk about them of his own accord, so Dean let Sam decide what he wanted to tell him and when.

Absolutely no rush. For the first time, Dean felt like he had all the time in the world to give Sam for recovering.

Until John walked down the steps and into the kitchen with his bags. As if it wasn't bad enough that Sam was in the middle of one of his worst days for the first time at Bobby's, John wanted to leave again. He wanted to uproot them again, despite his promise to let Sam take as long as he needed to heal.

Dean left Sam on the couch with a glance over his shoulder, but he knew that Sam wouldn't move. He would continue to lay and fix his blank stare straight ahead unless someone else moved him.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dean asked.

"I'm going to investigate a lead in Denver," John said.

"Sam's not ready to be moved again. Look at him!"

John looked at Dean like he had another head sprouting out of his neck and said, "I know."

Dean had to look at Sam again, helpless and lost on the couch, to reign in his temper enough that he wouldn't disturb him. Not that he knew if Sam registered anything in the strange, catatonic state he slipped into on his worst days.

"Then why are you dragging us to fucking Colorado?" Dean asked.

Realization crossed John's face. "I'm not," he said. "You're staying here with Sam and Bobby."

His anger faded, along with the urge to hit something. "What?"

"Do you really think Sam wants to stay in a motel room again?" John asked. "Kid can't keep down a protein shake because they bring back bad memories that he won't talk about yet. How do you think he would handle being in a room that's not much more than a recolored version of the place he was taken from in the first place?"

Dean stayed silent.

"I would never want to hurt Sammy like that, and it kills me to see him when he gets trapped in his memories," John said. "But I also need to make sure I find and kill one of the still living men responsible for his suffering, and a large portion of it from what we know. So, I'm going to Denver to check out the lead. You're going to stay here and keep an eye on Sam, and Bobby is going to be here to keep an eye on both of you."

"You're having Bobby _babysit_ us?" Dean asked.

"Well, the last time I left you alone to watch Sam during a hunt didn't end well," John said, venom seeping into his voice to match Dean's.

"I made a mistake," Dean spit out. He clenched his fists at his sides. He knew he messed up—he more than messed up—but hearing his father confirm it again hurt more than he thought, even with all the time that passed.

John gestured at Sam. "And look what happened, Dean," he said. "What if it was a murderer instead of traffickers? What if it had been a supernatural creature? Sam could have died because of your mistake, and it's going to be a while before you can earn my trust back."

Dean felt like a child being scolded, and he supposed he was exactly that in his father's eyes. It was the same as in Fort Douglas. Sam paid for his mistakes. Sam was thrown into danger because Dean needed a little fresh air or a drink.

Dean proved both times that he wasn't trustworthy. If he thought it took a long time to regain John's trust after Fort Douglas, where Sam hadn't actually been hurt, then it was going to take the rest of his life to regain his trust this time.

"It's a ten hour drive," John said. "I probably won't be back for awhile. Don't take Sam off of Bobby's property. Keep trying to work with him on recovering. See if you can find out anymore about what happened to him. Call me if anything happens or if you need me to come back early. Otherwise, I'll call you when I'm getting ready to head back."

"Yes, sir," Dean said. There was no use in arguing that he knew the drill by now. Not if he didn't want another reminder that even if he knew it, he still messed up last time.

John moved into the living room, leaned in close to Sam, and said something that Dean couldn't hear. Then, he was on his way out of the door.

Bobby entered as John left, both giving nothing more than a nod of acknowledgment to the other. He poured himself a cup of coffee and stayed silent until the rumble of John's truck faded into the distance.

"You look like you could use a bit of fresh air," he said.

Dean sat across from him at the table. "I'm not supposed to take Sam off of your property. Besides, he's not in any shape to leave right now."

"I didn't say to take him, but you need the break, kid," Bobby said. "I'll watch over Sam, and you go into town and get some foods that he'll want to eat. Can't keep the boy alive on canned soup and scrambled eggs forever."

"But…" Dean looked at Sam on the couch, his eyes glossed over and his blinks sluggish. If not for small movements like that, Dean would think he was dead.

"Dean," Bobby said, "I doubt he'd even notice you left. Not when he's like that."

Bobby pressed the keys to the Impala and a wad of cash into Dean's hands.

"I'm not supposed to be driving the Impala," Dean said, no matter how much he wished otherwise.

"You think I'm gonna tell on you to your daddy?" Bobby asked with a smile on his face. He jerked his head toward the door. "Get out of here, Dean. Go clear your head."

"Thanks," Dean said.

But he had so much to thank Bobby for that simply saying it never felt like enough.

* * *

The next morning, Dean confirmed that Sam really wasn't aware of what went on around him during his worst days.

"Where'd Dad go?" he asked.

Dean picked up yogurt at the store yesterday, thinking that Sam might be willing to stomach it. He was glad to see he was right.

"He's following one of Bobby's leads in Denver," Dean said.

"A lead on Liu?" Sam asked.

Dean watched Sam set his spoon down and turn his attention away from the yogurt, making Dean wish he had waited to answer Sam until he finished his breakfast. Until he got some desperately needed food in his stomach.

"Yeah."

"Why didn't he take us?" Sam asked. "Why didn't he even say goodbye?"

"He did say goodbye, and he thought it would be better if you stayed at Bobby's," Dean said.

"I don't remember him saying anything."

Dean nodded. "I wasn't sure, but you were having one of your days where you just checked out. And I mean completely checked out. Light's out, no one's home. I didn't know until now if you were actually aware of what went on around you during those days."

"Oh."

"'Oh'?" Dean repeated. "Shouldn't you be freaking out that you miss entire days? That there's a bunch of huge gaps of missing memories?"

Sam shrugged. "I guess I'm used to it."

"How the hell can you be used to something like that?" Dean asked. The voice in the back of his mind screamed not to lose his temper with Sam. It told him that Sam had been through enough and didn't need this, but it was too late to stop the words or the anger that laced them. "Doesn't it bother you to not know what happened throughout an entire day?"

Sam's spoon hit him right between the eyes, and it stung a lot more than he thought it should. Sam might not have been in top shape, but damn, he still had a strong throwing arm.

"Of course, it bothers me," Sam yelled. "But it's better to not remember a day here or at Jim's. What bothers me the most is that there are huge gaps missing from when I was with Liu, and I know that bad things happened to me. And I mean living nightmares, but I can't fucking remember it."

Dean heard footsteps rush away from him, and he stumbled trying to follow while his vision was still clearing from the impact of the biting metal of Sam's spoon.

"Shit. Shit. Shit," he said when he heard a door slam shut.

Bobby's back door, specifically. One that led to outside.

Dean followed Sam's tracks, but by the time he stepped out of the door, Sam was nowhere in sight.

He ran his hands through his hair. Sam's outbursts were not a new addition to the recovery process that he liked, and this one was worse than the last. He needed to tell Bobby. He should probably call his dad, but he really didn't want to admit that he'd lost track of Sam within one day, or that Sam might be as unstable as their dad believed.

But Bobby definitely needed to know. He just hoped it wouldn't be a mistake to waste those few precious moments it took to fill Bobby in before he tried to find Sam.

* * *

Sam moved through the woods behind Bobby's house. He sprinted at first, but then slowed down and took more careful steps. He didn't want to leave behind an obvious trail for Dean to follow, and he was glad that the snow they encountered on the way out from Blue Earth had not fallen in Sioux Falls.

This was the first time he was so far away from Dean since his rescue, and it was willingly. A lifetime ago, he would have loved the solitude of being alone in the woods. Now, it left him with a paranoia that he couldn't fully shake.

And he knew it was ridiculous, but he kept thinking that someone was going to step out from behind one of the trees and throw him back into the world of human trafficking.

On the other hand, it was a perfect opportunity for him to practice using the fire in him. The fire that relentlessly begged to be used, enough that his veins felt like they were filled with magma rather than blood most days.

He chose a small clearing where the ground was littered with sticks and picked one up.

Step one: learn to consciously tap into his ability. Most times he used it up until then were done unconsciously. More out of a sense of self-preservation than anything.

It took him more tries than he expected before the stick in his hands burst into flames, but getting the flames to extinguish themselves was even harder and left him exhausted.

He repeated the process until he felt he had a decent grip on the most basic use of his ability and the ground around him was filled with scorched sticks and ashes.

He didn't know how long he spent there, but he figured that Dean would be worried out of his mind and it was probably best to head back to Bobby's house, especially with the temperature starting to drop and his lack of a coat. Though he was a little surprised that Dean hadn't found him yet.

He turned and started to head in the right direction, but the world spun and something warm dripped down from his nose, over his lips, and off of his chin. He brought his hand up to wipe it away, but everything went dark. He felt the ground rise up to meet him, then nothing.

* * *

 _He saw himself on the bed, restrained an_ _d wild-eyed, looking more feral than a normal human should._

" _But you aren't a normal human, are you?"_

 _Sam looked to his left and saw a man standing beside him, and he was certain that no such man was in his room at the club. There was something different about him. Something unsettling in the way he looked down at Sam and grinned. It wasn't a leer like most of the customers had._

 _The man blinked and his eyes turned into a sickly yellow._

" _It's you," Sam said._

 _He tried to turn and run away, but the man put his hand on Sam's shoulder with a tight grip and kept him still. No matter how much Sam struggled against it, he couldn't budge._

 _That grip was inhuman and reminded Sam that this thing had to be either a shadow person or a demon. But he couldn't recall reading anything about shadow people being much more than observers that left the observed terrified._

" _You're a demon," Sam said. He needed the confirmation. He needed to know that he wasn't just going crazy from the dreams of his traumatized mind._

 _H_ _is grin widened. "Always knew you were bright, Sammy," he said. "That's one of the reasons you're my favorite._ _Now, sit back and watch. You did want your memories, didn't you?_ _"_

 _Sam stopped fighting his grip, though the fact that the man next to him was a demon set off warning bells in his head._

 _Why was he a demon's favorite? Why would the demon keep offering help and show him the memories that he was searching for?_

 _He watched a couple of task masters enter with a fire extinguisher, incense, and an unlabeled prescription bottle._

 _He remembered bits of this day, and he watched until Liu came in, after the task masters left and the incense they brought burned, with the girl whose face eluded his memories until then._

 _He saw the girl's eyes, and how they were so grey, like they were drained of their color and much older than they should have been. He didn't know how long she had been at the mercy of Liu, but the youth she should have had was nowhere in sight. It was siphoned away piece by piece, night after night._

 _He saw her tattoo, the only identification they had from the day they were processed._

 _55943._

" _You made a deal here," the demon said. "_ _Unfortunately for you, our meeting is drawing to a close._ _I'll make sure you remember it in full once you wake up, but_ _keep in mind that_ _all deals have prices."_

"Sammy?"

Sticks cracked and fallen leaves rustled.

"Jesus, Sammy. C'mon, wake up."

It took a bit of effort—his eyelids felt unusually heavy—but he managed to open them and find Dean hovering over him. Everything was darker than he remembered, but it would hide the ashes around him from Dean.

"You with me, Sammy?" Dean asked.

"Where'd the sun go?"

Dean chuckled a bit, but there was a hesitance to it. "It set. I've been looking for you all day."

Dean helped pull him into a sitting position and removed his own jacket to put it on Sam. They started walking with Sam leaning against Dean, but he ended up on Dean's back once he stumbled over one too many sticks for Dean's liking. The last time he had a piggyback ride, it was from a task master carrying him into Liu's club. It was when his back was too messed up for him to be carried any other way and his leg was cut and could hardly support his weight.

His brain was having a hard time getting the message that it was Dean carrying him, and he was carrying him to safety. He wasn't in China anymore, and he wasn't about to be drugged again or sold to customers for a couple hours at a time.

"You okay, Sam?"

"Just remembering something," Sam said.

Dean stopped for a second and looked over his shoulder at Sam. "You want me to put you down?"

Sam shook his head. "It's fine," he said. "Aren't you going to yell at me for running off?"

"Believe me, I want to," Dean said. "But me losing my temper is what made you run off in the first place. Although, I really didn't appreciate having a spoon thrown at me. That freaking hurt, Sam."

"Sorry."

Dean shrugged, as much as he could. "I shouldn't have been so angry that it didn't seem to bother you that you can't remember entire days. It's not your fault. Just your mind trying to cope and all that. But, please, don't do that again. I don't want to have a heart attack before I'm thirty."

"I remembered," Sam said.

He didn't want to keep talking about his mind's poor coping methods. He didn't want to play the game of whose fault any of it was. He knew that he couldn't control how his mind dealt with the trauma, and he wished so badly he could remember what happened so that he could start getting over it, but it wasn't Dean's fault either. He'd been so patient so far, but he was bound to crack and let his emotions and frustration out at some point. As much as Dean liked to believe otherwise, he wasn't made out of stone.

"Remembered what?" Dean asked.

"The girl and Liu. 55943 was her number."

"What did Liu want?"

"A deal."

"What kind of deal?" Dean asked. Each word was spoken slowly and carefully, anger thinly veiled behind them.

 _"So I have a bit of a proposition for you," Liu said. "Since you like playing hero so much."_

 _And wasn't that what got him into this mess in the first place?_

 _"Obey and cooperate, let my clients have their good times."_

 _Sam fixed his best glare on Liu, unable to do much else._

 _"Don't hurt them. Hell, you don't have to do much other than lay," Liu said. "But you listen to me and my task masters, and every night you obey is a night that this_ _ _sweet__ _girl here will be given a break. Not a single client will enter her room. She can rest to her heart's content. Off limits, for all purposes."_

"I helped the girl, but I couldn't save her," Sam said. "Why didn't you save her? Why just me?"

"You might not agree, but you're always gonna come first in my eyes, Sammy. Do I wish that we could have saved everyone there? Hell, yeah. Of course, I do. But if I can only save one person, then I'm always gonna choose you."

"They deserved it more than me," Sam said.

"Sam…"

Dean never finished his thought, and they both stayed quiet the rest of the way back to Bobby's.

* * *

Dean cleaned up the lower half of his face, something he apparently thought Sam was incapable of.

Sam noticed in the bathroom's light that Dean had a mark between his eyes, red and angry. He never meant to hurt Dean. It was an accident.

"One hell of a nosebleed," Dean said. "You sure you're okay, Sam? You get in a fight with a tree or something while you were out there?"

"It's probably just from the cold. I'm fine," Sam said.

Dean gave him a look that screamed that he wasn't buying it, and it was during these times that Sam found himself thinking that Dean was more like his mother than his brother.

"The cold's never given you nosebleeds before."

Sam shrugged. "Well, maybe all the drugs I was forced to take fucked up my head."

Dean's eyes went wide, and Sam realized he should have just kept his mouth shut. Why did he choose that out of all the fake reasoning he could have given? Why did he have to choose the one that would make Dean panic the most?

"Do you want me to take you to the hospital to get checked out?" he asked. "I'd have to call Dad first. He didn't want you off of Bobby's property, but if it has to do with your health, I don't care what he said."

"Dean, it's fine. I'm fine," Sam said. "It was probably just a fluke. Just a random nosebleed. Happens to people all the time."

"But we don't _know_ that, Sam. We can't tell for sure that it isn't something serious," Dean said.

Sam sighed. Whether or not it was related to the use of his ability, a headache raged within his skull. "Look, I just need a good night's sleep, okay? I don't want to go to the hospital."

He must have looked pathetic for Dean to back down that easily. Dean shooed him into the bedroom and entered a few minutes later with sleeping pills and a glass of water.

Tonight wasn't the night for him to refuse, not after the mental turmoil he just put Dean through. So, he took the pills without arguing and laid down, waiting for them to send him into a dark, dreamless sleep.

* * *

The rest of the week, Sam skipped taking sleeping pills and snuck out when he was certain that Dean was asleep. He stayed close to Bobby's house, but hidden in the woods enough that no one would see the small flames or minuscule amount of smoke.

If Dean knew, he'd be furious. If he saw so much as a drop of the blood that poured from his nose every time he used the fire, he'd drag Sam off to the hospital.

But it was worth the risk. Each time, Sam felt a little more in control and a little stronger. And he felt a need for just a little more control and a little more strength every time he returned to the house.

He knew he was playing with fire in more than one way, but the demon had yet to return to his dreams since clearing the memory of his attempt to help 55943. Still, he refused the pills and hoped to see him and uncover more of the missing sections of time, even if that meant trusting something supposed to be pure evil.

Dean came down the stairs, and Sam was already sitting at Bobby's kitchen table, pretending that he wasn't so tired that passing out was more likely to happen than not.

"Sam," Dean said, taking the seat across. It was almost a routine by now. "The circles under your eyes could give a panda a run for its money. Please, just take some of the pills and get some sleep."

"Your brother's right, Sam," Bobby said. "You ain't helping no one by depriving yourself of sleep. If you're still worried about strange dreams, I think I might have something to help you out."

Sam turned his attention to Bobby, ignoring Dean's questions about the strange dreams he wasn't informed about. "Like what?" he asked.

If either Bobby or Dean found out the truth about his dreams, he knew that he wouldn't like whatever came next.

If his father ever found out about it, he could guarantee that he would never have a natural sleep again. Drug-induced or nothing at all would be his only options.

"There are always dream catchers," Bobby said. "The belief is that bad dreams get caught in its web, and good dreams pass through to slide down the feathers and reach the sleeper. Or we could try putting a God's eye over your bed. The real, old ones ain't easy to come by, but it's not impossible to find one. The belief is that they offer protection from things that can't be physically seen. It's also supposed to heal."

"How soon could we get one?" Dean asked. "Doesn't matter which, but both would be great."

"Shouldn't you ask me before deciding?" Sam asked.

"Shouldn't you tell me when you're having strange dreams?" Dean shot back. "Look at yourself, Sam. Clearly, you're not interested in taking care of yourself, so I have to take care of you and make the decisions that deal with your well-being. If that means stringing up a dream catcher or a God's eye over your bed, then that's exactly what I'm going to do."

"I'll just take the pills again, it's no big deal," Sam said.

But how the hell could he fake taking them under Dean's watch so that he could continue sneaking out for his own form of training?

"We'll have to get some more of them," Dean said. "I just don't really like the idea of you having to rely on medication for a peaceful sleep."

Sam shrugged. "Maybe Bobby is right and it's my mind making up crazy stuff. If that's the cause, then shouldn't it fade with time?"

"Please, Sam," Dean said. "At least try it."

Dean didn't beg often. In fact, Sam couldn't remember the last time he begged at all. It just wasn't _Dean_. Dean was supposed to be confident and cocky, ready to take on the world.

Not begging, though. Not looking lost in the world as he waited on Sam's answer.

Sam sighed, and maybe Dean looked like that on purpose because he knew that Sam would cave.

"Fine."

He couldn't pretend that Dean's relieved grin wasn't worth it.

* * *

Dean paced the bedroom floor. Sam slept, unaware of the world around him, but Dean wanted Bobby to hurry up and get a dream catcher or God's eye. He hated having to drug his little brother.

There was a lot wrong with the world if an innocent could be put through so much trauma it stole so much from them, but those responsible got to continue living like nothing happened. The sooner John found and killed Liu, the better all of them would sleep.

Dean's phone rang, and he stepped out of the room to answer.

"Dean."

"Hey, Dad," he said. "On your way back, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah, I'll be there by morning," John said. "How's Sammy doing?"

"I don't know, Dad," Dean said. "He's not sleeping well. His outbursts are more frequent. It's like he's either angry, or he just doesn't feel anything at all."

"We'll keep helping him, but I found where Liu might go to an auction soon," John said. "It's kind of far from Bobby's, you think that Sam could handle the move?"

"I thought you said motel rooms wouldn't be a good idea."

"I found some cheap apartments that are for rent. We'll probably be in the area for awhile. You remember how long it took in Massachusetts to find anything out about the auctions."

"Where are we heading?" Dean asked. If his dad had his mind set on something, he knew that changing it would be next to impossible. But he hoped that seeing Sam again would be enough to do the impossible and make him reconsider moving all of them from Bobby's.

"Austin, Texas," John said. "Make sure you're rested up. It's about a fifteen hour drive."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Sam sat in the passenger seat, and Dean followed their dad's truck down the road. He hadn't expected Bobby to come with them—especially hadn't expected him to ride with their dad—but he was glad. He welcomed the extra set of trusted eyes looking out for Sam.

And he tried not to think about the very fact that they were dragging Sam right back to a place where they suspected human trafficking occurred.

"I can turn around, Sam," Dean said. "Screw what Dad wants. If this makes you uncomfortable, we'll go back to Pastor Jim's or something."

He already tried to dissuade his dad that morning, but even Sam ended up against him for that argument. The one time they agreed on something, Dean wished they wouldn't have.

"No, Dean," Sam said. "It's fine."

"Sam…"

"I need to see him dead, Dean," Sam said. "I need to be there. Besides…"

"Besides what?"

"I'm the only one who's actually seen him, and I'm your best source about…" Sam paused for a long minute. Long enough for Dean to wonder if he'd continue at all.

"I'm your best source about human auctions," Sam finished.

"I don't like this at all, Sammy," Dean said. "I have a really bad feeling."

His gut felt more like a gaping hole than an organ, and it left him internally chilled. He glanced in the mirrors more than he ever had during a drive before, always expecting to see someone following them. It was the same feeling he got in the middle of dangerous hunts, the ones where Sam was allowed to come along for the actual hunting portion.

The feeling that Sam was threatened.

"I know," Sam said. "I feel it, too."

Dean's knuckles turned white from his grip on the steering wheel. Sam was as uncomfortable as he was, probably more so. None of this was going to be easy on him, and Dean didn't doubt that unpleasant memories were going to be forced to the forefront of Sam's mind. He didn't doubt that there was every possibility that this could hurt Sam more than it helped him.

But Sam was still willing to go and help, because he needed Liu to be dead as much as any of them did. More, maybe.

"I'm not gonna let anyone touch you, Sammy," Dean said. "I promise. I'm not gonna let anyone lay a fucking finger on you."

Sam gave him a small smile, the kind that Dean hated. It screamed that he didn't fully believe him, but pretended for Dean's sake.

"Seriously, Sam. I know I messed up last time, but I'm not letting you out of my sight this time. I'm going to do my job properly."

Sam nodded and looked out the window, his way of ending the conversation. It was a small victory that Sam wasn't completely hiding himself from the world, only going as far as leaving his hood up.

Dean realized he had two jobs to do once they got to Texas.

One: make sure no one hurt Sam in any way.

Two: earn Sam's full trust back.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** And they're headed right back into trafficking in search of Liu, with Sam in tow this time. I'm sure that Liu definitely isn't pissed that Sam got away and nothing is going to happen, so dragging Sam to the same place Liu is supposed to be is a great idea. Right?

Well, we'll see what happens soon enough!

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! I promise we're going to get back into the action now that Sam is coping a little better and back in motion.

Leave a review before you go?


	7. Sweet Dreams

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **Warnings:** Language and flashbacks.

* * *

They left early in the morning, when the sun was just staring to rise, and arrived in the middle of the night to the little apartment they'd be calling 'home' for the coming weeks.

The ride had been relatively silent aside from the initial conversation of Dean trying to convince Sam it was better for them to turn around, not drive straight towards traffickers. Other than that, Dean still kept the music off and the tapping of his fingers on the steering wheel soft. He really didn't need to do something that would send Sam back into his nightmarish memories while they were on the road.

Throughout the trip, he heard Sam mutter '55943' under his breath. He had to strain to hear it, not much more than a whisper, but it sounded obsessive. It sounded like Sam thought he was going to forget the numbers if he didn't repeat them and burn them into his memory. It sounded like Sam thought something awful would happen if he _did_ forget the numbers.

It left him exhausted by the time he could park for the night in one of the two parking spots allotted to them (along with having driven for an entire day with minimum breaks). Dean wasn't surprised that he'd be sharing one of the two bedrooms with Sam. In fact, he expected it.

The surprise would be how long his dad and Bobby could share a room before one of them threatened to kill the other.

The couch looked a little worn down, but they couldn't complain since they had furniture at the very least. Maybe he could get Sam to bet him over how long it would be before either Bobby or their dad ended up sleeping in the living room.

The thought made him pause for a second. The last time he made a bet with Sam ended with Sam's head being shaved.

Only for it to be shaved by traffickers again not long after. Even if Sam never mentioned it, Dean knew. His hair should have been longer when they found him, not shorter.

Maybe he wouldn't be making bets with Sam anytime soon.

He threw his own dufflebag at the foot of his bed, and Sam's at the foot of the opposite bed. If he hadn't grabbed both, he doubted Sam would have bothered bringing his own stuff into the apartment at all. He used to be hyper-aware of what needed to be done, but now he moved like he was lost and looking for something that Dean couldn't see. Something that Dean couldn't seek out for him.

Dean flopped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. He was exhausted from driving all day and he just wanted to close his eyes and sleep for the next twenty-four hours (at least), but he should be getting out some of the few remaining sleeping pills for Sam. He should be setting an alarm to take Sam to a local doctor so they could get a prescription for more sleeping pills.

Sam wandered into the room and settled himself on the bed opposite of Dean's. He was getting better a little bit at a time, but there was still so much of him lost in places where Dean couldn't find him.

* * *

Sam wanted to shrink in on himself, away from the stares directed at him. Dean dragged him to the doctor for more sleeping pills (and thankfully did most of the talking for Sam and managed to avoid having Sam sent in for psychological evaluations), but he decided to stop at the pharmacy on the way back to their apartment to pick them up.

Which meant he decided that Sam had to go into the store with him because he was too uncomfortable to not have Sam in his line of sight.

Which meant that Sam was also put in the line of sight of people too curious for his liking.

He pulled his hood higher over his head, but the warmer weather in Texas made wearing a hoodie at all look strange.

Dean guided him through the store while they waited for the pharmacist to fill the prescription, picking up anything else he thought they might need (anything he thought he'd be able to get Sam to eat) with the money their dad gave him.

The Sam Survival Fund.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean said. He stopped in the middle of an aisle and pointed to one of the shelves. "How about some of that?"

Sam looked over. The shelf Dean pointed at was stocked full of PediaSure.

Dean had a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, but Sam wasn't amused. He shoved past Dean and continued down the aisle, trying to ignore the feeling of a hand holding his jaw in place while he gagged down protein shakes forced into his mouth. Trying to ignore the need to find a bathroom before he threw up and made a scene in the middle of the store.

"It was just a joke, Sammy," Dean said. "I'm sorry. They aren't exactly protein shakes, so I thought…"

Sam felt Dean's hand land on his shoulder, but he pulled away from it and turned to face Dean. "Everyone's fucking staring at me, Dean. I want to go back to the car."

"You're wearing a sweatshirt and it's, like, seventy degrees, dude," Dean said.

Sam glared at Dean and said, "Just give me the keys. I'll go wait in the car."

"Yeah, that's not happening, Sam," Dean said.

He dragged Sam out of the aisle and to the chairs in the pharmacy waiting area.

Dean sat next to him, bouncing one leg up and down on the ball of his foot.

"This isn't any better, Dean," Sam said. "People look at me and wonder what's wrong with me."

"You were stuck in a living nightmare for over a month," Dean said. "You're still recovering, and it's fine to not be okay yet."

Sam's tongue tied itself into a knot. He couldn't find the words to explain to Dean how it felt to be stared at. He couldn't ignore the idea that the staring was just the beginning, and that inspection from bidders would soon follow suit.

Because Dean had never been so thoroughly objectified, how could he possibly understand the feeling that it left?

When their name was called, Sam was on his way out of the door, leaving Dean to jog in order to catch up to him by the time he grabbed the pills.

Sam sunk into the passenger seat of the Impala, followed shortly by Dean.

"We have three months worth, but I'll come by myself next time," Dean said.

"It doesn't matter, Dean. We probably won't even still be here in three months. We'll have moved on again by then."

"Are you upset about that?" Dean asked.

Sam tried not to roll his eyes. He didn't need Dean interrogating him to figure out what was bugging him. Most times, it was something he didn't want to talk about (or too many things that he wouldn't know where to start talking). He didn't want to admit that he should have listened to Dean and asked to stay at Bobby's or go to Pastor Jim's while his dad and Bobby took care of hunting for Liu.

There was just something about being in Austin that unsettled him. Maybe it was the knowledge that his dad had good reason to suspect human trafficking happening in the city. Maybe it was the knowledge that he was far too close to the very thing that was still breaking him.

Maybe it was simply the fact that there were too many eyes, and he couldn't escape all of them.

"No, Dean," Sam said. "That's not it. It's nothing."

"Sam, talk to me, man. Let me help you."

"I don't want to talk about it."

Dean didn't push, but Sam saw his frequent glances out of the corner of his eye. He could practically feel how much Dean wanted answers.

The problem was that Sam didn't have all of the answers either.

* * *

Sneaking out proved harder at the apartment than at Bobby's house. There was less space, and Dean hovered over Sam like he would vanish into thin air if he looked away.

Bobby had yet to find a real dream catcher or God's eye (the kinds still believed to have the spiritual power to heal and protect), and Dean refused to let Sam skip taking sleeping pills until they had one. Not when he knew that Sam had strange dreams that could be prevented.

Which left Sam in need of a plan to escape Dean's protection in order to continue practicing with his abilities, and hope that the demon would find a way to visit him again to clear up more memories.

Now that he'd seen one with new clarity, he needed to see more.

"Dean?" he asked. They were left at the apartment yet again while John and Bobby tried to dig up any information they could.

"What?" Dean sat next to him on the couch, flipping through channels, but he never stayed on one for more than a handful of seconds.

"If we're going to be here for a few weeks at least, shouldn't I be going to school?"

Dean sighed and set the remote to the side, giving Sam his full attention (as if Sam could pretend that Dean's attention was ever _not_ on him these days). "Sam," he said, "no one expects you to go back to school after everything."

"The law does. I'm too young to dropout."

"I'm pretty sure that if we wanted, we could get an exception made for you," Dean said.

"What if I want to go back to school?" Sam asked.

Dean shook his head. "I don't like that, Sammy. I can't keep an eye on you if you're in school. What if something happens?"

Sam took a deep breath. A dull ache started throbbing in the back of his skull. Sometimes, Dean was near impossible to deal with.

"None of the kids who went missing in Massachusetts were taken from school. They were probably taken on their way home."

"Well, none of them were taken from their beds either," Dean said. "Until you."

Dean had an almost smug look on his face, like they were playing chess and Sam fell right into a trap he set up. He looked like he was daring Sam to challenge his rebuttal because he knew he was right.

"And where were you when that happened, Dean?" Sam asked.

The satisfaction of wiping the I-know-I'm-right look off of Dean's face faded when Sam saw the horror that replaced it, the anger he felt when he said the words long gone.

"Dean, I'm sorry," Sam said. "I didn't mean it."

"No, I deserved that. You're right," Dean said. He returned his attention to the TV, which now seemed much more interesting than it had minutes ago.

"Dean…"

"I'll talk to Dad about it when he gets home," Dean said softly.

* * *

"You agree?" Dean asked. His voice rose to the point where he was practically yelling.

John shrugged. "Why not? I thought you wanted Sam to be interested in normal things again. You were the one who complained that it wasn't like Sam to be okay with missing so much school."

"Yeah, well, I didn't mean that I wanted him going back. I can't keep an eye on him if he's at school, not without getting the cops called on me because it looks like I'm being creepy."

"Drop him off and be there to pick him up," John said. "And stop pacing before you wear down what's left of the carpet. Be glad that Sam wants to go back to a normal routine. Means he's healing."

Dean dropped onto the couch. "I'm glad he's healing. Believe me, I am. But what happens if he decides to get back to his independence streak and it ends with the world screwing him over again? Besides, you weren't at the pharmacy with us when we picked up the sleeping pills. You didn't see him."

"What happened at the pharmacy? And why didn't you tell me something happened at the pharmacy the day you boys went there?" John asked. He finally put down the mess of papers he and Bobby collected from the library and appeared interested in the conversation for the first time since its beginning.

"He was really paranoid and upset. He felt like everyone was staring at him, but he _was_ wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up in seventy degree weather. I made a bad joke about the nutrition shakes there, and he lost all of the color in his face. I thought he was going to throw up, and then he spent the rest of the time asking if he could go wait in the Impala."

"Look, Bobby will be back with dinner any minute," John said. "I'll talk to Sam about it after, but if he feels like he wants to try, we might have to shove aside our worries and let him. It could be good for him to regain a little independence."

Dean crossed his arms. "He doesn't need independence," Dean said. "He needs safety."

"You know, maybe having some time to yourself while he's at school won't hurt either," John said.

Dean shook his head, but dropped the conversation. It felt like his arguments were always being discounted, his words not really heard. If he wasn't being ignored, his mistakes were being thrown back into his face. He wondered if that's how Sam felt before he was trafficked, like he was arguing with a brick wall.

Couldn't his dad and Sam understand that Sam really shouldn't be anywhere alone when they knew that there are traffickers in the area? When they knew that _Liu_ was supposed to be coming to the area?

* * *

Dean brought the Impala to a stop, only allowed to drive it for the sake of helping Sam, and Sam once again wondered what the hell he was doing. Was this really worth a bit of time to practice his pyrokinesis (the only term he could find that fit what he could do)?

"You don't have to go if you don't want to, Sam," Dean said. "I could turn around and take us back to the apartment."

Dean had been repeating those same words the entire way to the high school their dad enrolled Sam in, and every time it shook Sam's determination a little more.

"Dad said he talked to the school administrators, and forged a doctor's note. They know I'm not, uh, in a good state of mind, so I can leave early any time I need to. Or go talk to the counselor."

Which wasn't going to happen. Why would he talk to a stranger about his problems when he wouldn't even talk to Dean about them most of the time?

Dean nodded, still scowling like he had been the entire drive (and the entire night before). "You have your phone?" he asked.

"In my backpack."

"Good," Dean said. "You feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, you call me. Understand?"

"Yes, Dean."

"And make sure you stay in the building when you call. I'll come in and get you."

"Yes, Dean."

Sam got out of the Impala and rushed into the school building before he lost his nerve and asked Dean to drive him back home. None of the other kids flooding the area looked at him with much other than curiosity, and even that was short-lived, but Sam tried to shrink into himself anyway.

The layers of clothing he piled on made him warm to the point of it being unbearable, but there were too many marks on his skin that he didn't want anybody to see. It was bad enough that his family had to witness remnants of what he went through. Without physical evidence, it would have been easier to pretend it was all just a bad dream for all of them.

He raised a hand and brushed his fingertips against his throat, covered in pretty, white bandages to hide the hideous electrical scarring left behind from the traffickers' unhealthy obsession with shock collars. The scars that still left him with a deep ache that he refused to tell Dean about, not when Dean thought that every pain of Sam's was his responsibility. Not when Dean acted like he was the source of every scar.

He knew the drill of being the new kid at a school. Go to the principal's office, be shown around the building, get his schedule, and don't get in trouble.

This time, the principal showed him the school himself instead of one of the student ambassadors (who always seemed a little too peppy when it came to giving the new kid a tour). He kept glancing at Sam throughout the tour. Sam couldn't fully read his expression, but he swore there was a touch of worry there. There was a bit of excitement, too. But after receiving his transcripts from his past schools, most administrators were more than happy to have him at their school.

The principal put a lot of emphasis on where the counselor's office was, and even more emphasis on how Sam was welcome to go and talk with the counselor at any point.

She seemed nice enough, coming out to greet Sam and explain that she heard he recently went through some traumatic events, but Sam still didn't plan on speaking to her any time soon. There were some problems that she wouldn't be able to help him with, and he wasn't about to risk slipping up and being committed.

And then he was sent to class.

* * *

He planned on making it through his first day in full before he started skipping to put his plan to practice in action, but the world always seemed to have other plans in place for him.

He didn't realize that he had a Phys. Ed class until it was time for him to head to it, right before lunch (which he preferred over having it right after lunch).

As he watched his classmates file into the locker rooms to change, the teacher flagged him down. He looked like he was about Dean's age, tall and even had the same hair color, which would have comforted him in the past. Now, it just left him homesick for his brother's company.

The teacher held out clothes to Sam. "Heard there was going to be a new kid in my class, and I figured you didn't have a change of clothes just yet. Most kids don't bring a set on the first day," he said. "Don't worry, these are clean. After too many kids 'forgot' to bring clothes so they could skip out of class, the school started keeping some spares."

 _Sam was tossed a few towels and a set of clothes._

" _Get cleaned up," Harold said. "Gotta look presentable when bidders come through."_

 _Sam was about to refuse,_ _throw the clothes to the ground, and rebel, but Harold must have seen his intentions because he added, "Get cleaned up, or I'll call in some of the other guys and they will gladly clean you up."_

Sam felt his hands trembling and heard how harsh his breathing sounded, but there was a disconnect that left him believing that it was someone else's hands shaking. It was someone else having trouble breathing.

"Hey, you okay?" his teacher asked.

Sam swallowed the bile attempting to rise up his throat several times before he answered. "I need to leave," he said. He sounded pathetic, but he didn't care and his legs carried him to the main office on autopilot.

He made it to the office in record time and sat in one of the chairs across from the secretary's desk. She did her best to not stare at him while he dialed Dean's number, but he could tell she really wanted to.

Sam heard Dean answer his phone after the first ring, and he did his best to not sound as shaken as he felt. The last thing any of them needed was Dean getting into a car accident on his way there. "Dean, can you come pick me up?" Sam asked.

Dean stormed into the room a matter of minutes later, and Sam didn't want to know how many traffic laws he broke on his way.

He didn't say 'I told you so' or 'You should have listened to me'. He just herded Sam back to the Impala and started them on their way home.

Sam was beyond grateful to Dean and how he was handling everything, but there was so much he couldn't know. There was so much he had to hide from Dean, and he felt it eating away at him internally.

Dean deserved a better brother than him.

* * *

Dean didn't let him go back to school for the rest of the week. Sam hadn't planned on going to classes anyway, but he needed to be separate from Dean if he wanted to practice his pyrokinesis without having to give explanations that he didn't have, and school was the perfect cover.

But the week after, he made it through school without incident. Mostly because he walked into the building as a show for Dean, then walked straight out through the back entrance and to a nearby park that had just enough trees to conceal his small fires.

He tried not to over do it. He needed to be back at school when it let out so that Dean wouldn't be suspicious, and he definitely needed to not have a bloody nose when Dean picked him up. He didn't know how long he'd be able to keep it up before the school reported to his dad that he'd been missing too much, if they noticed at all.

But the feeling of fire in his hands and knowing that he was the cause of it was addicting. Intoxicating. He could hold fire in his hands and not be burned.

The solitude was a nice bonus, and much needed after always being surrounded and watched.

"Sam?"

The fire extinguished as he turned to face whoever decided to interrupt his time alone. But once he saw her, any anger and fear at being found out melted away.

"Amy?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," she said. She looked around and shrugged, raising her hand enough so Sam could see the blood on it. "I've been feeding off of animals. It's not great, but it raises less suspicion. What about you?"

Sam said, "I don't know what to do."

"About… what I just think I saw?" she asked.

Sam nodded.

Amy returned the nod and wiped her hands as best as she could to get the blood off. "Let's just take a walk and we'll figure it out together, okay?"

They walked out of the woods in silence until they came to a park bench and sat side-by-side.

Amy broke the silence by pulling out a printed newspaper article. "I'm glad you're okay," she said. "I looked you up and found this, so I thought that something bad had happened."

Sam took the article, seeing his own picture and name on it. "I was reported missing?" he asked.

Had things been so bad that his family resorted to asking the police for help?

"You didn't know?" Amy asked. "I guess a lot of kids went missing from the same area as you. I just wanted to see if I could find anything to tell me you were okay. I didn't expect this."

"A lot happened since I last saw you," Sam said. "A lot of bad things, but my dad and brother got me out. They've been looking after me, but I can't let them find out what you just saw me do. I can't let them know how much of a freak I am. If I'd taken your offer and run away too, maybe it could have all been avoided."

"Do you still want to?" Amy asked. "Run away and be freaks together?"

Sam smiled a bit, but shook his head. "I don't think that could happen anymore. I'm sorry, but I just really need Dean around. Even if I have to keep secrets from him."

Amy opened her mouth to speak, but a hand pressed a cloth over it and her nose. Her eyes went wide, her pupils narrowed to feline slits, then closed and she slumped in her seat.

Sam tried to reach out to help her. He tried to figure out what was wrong, tried to catch a glimpse of the people responsible, but his mind was growing increasingly foggy.

He reached up and found a hand holding a sweet-scented cloth over his own mouth and nose. Without the strength left to try and pull the hand away, his consciousness faded as quickly as Amy's had and he was plunged into darkness.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** What? Are we finally getting to some action? Yes! We are! Who could possibly be after Sam, and what could possibly happen to him (and Amy)?

Thanks to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! I really appreciate the support.

Leave your thoughts before you go?


	8. Crash

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **Warnings:** Language.

* * *

When his cell phone rang, Dean's heart sank at the thought that Sam might have had another breakdown at school. He knew that it was a bad idea in the first place. Sam should stay at the apartment with him, where it's safe.

When he glanced at the caller ID and saw his dad's phone number listed, he didn't know whether or not he should be worried or excited. It could be nothing, but his dad never called just for nothing. He only called with reasons, and most of them weren't good. On the other hand, he might have found something that would help them get to Liu.

He flipped it open either way. "Dad?"

"Dean, I thought we agreed that Sam could try going to school again this week," he said.

"I dropped him off in the morning every day this week so far, and picked him up in front of the school when class let out," Dean said.

"Then, why have I been getting calls that he hasn't been in a single class all this week?"

"I don't know," Dean said. "I don't… I don't know. I watched him go into the building each time."

"So, he isn't with you right now?"

"No," Dean said. "I haven't seen him since this morning. You don't think that…?"

Dean didn't want to ask. If he asked, then the possibility became too real. If Sam had been taken by traffickers again, Dean wasn't sure he'd be able to get any semblance of him back. He was afraid that Sam would shut out the world entirely and eternally.

"You've been dropping him off and picking him up, so I don't think we can jump to conclusions yet. But he _is_ obviously going somewhere that isn't school, and we need to find out why," John said.

"Why would he beg to go back to school, then skip class anyway?" Dean asked.

"I don't know, Dean," John said. "Just work on finding him first. Call me immediately if you figure any of this out."

"Yes, sir," Dean said.

He hung up and was already halfway out the door. There were some things that Dean didn't need to be told twice, and all things concerning Sam fell into that category.

Behind the wheel of the Impala, he kept dialing Sam's cell phone, but it went to voice mail. He kept calling until he was ready to throw his own phone out of the window in his frustration.

"Damn it, Sammy," he said. "What good is having a cell phone if you're not gonna answer anyway?"

He made sure to keep an eye on the sidewalks as he drove to the school, on the off chance that Sam went for a simple stroll while he skipped classes (and knowing that, with his luck, it wouldn't be such an easy solution).

When he found Sam, it was going to be difficult to balance the equally intense desires to kick his ass, and to handcuff Sam to him. At this point, he was willing to kick ass and handcuff afterward for good measure.

He parked and was out of the car and into the school in what had to be record time (his record time to enter a school was much different than his record time to leave one).

He burst into the main office, and the poor secretary looked like she was about to have a heart attack.

"Can I help you?" she asked in broken stutters while catching her breath.

"I'm looking for Sam Winchester. I drop him off in the morning, but apparently he hasn't been in any classes this week," Dean said.

The secretary typed for a moment that felt far too long, trying to divide her attention between her screen and frightened looks at Dean. "It looks like he's been absent due to a breakdown that happened right before his Phys. Ed class last week Monday," she said.

"Yeah, but he was supposed to be back this week," Dean said.

He mentally filed away the fact that Sam's breakdown was right before Phys. Ed. Just in case it was important, because Sam never explained what made him lose it that day.

"He's been listed as absent in all of his classes this week and your father has been called about it," she said. "There's really nothing I can do."

"No, no, no, no, no," Dean said. He really didn't want to hit a woman, but his patience was being tested and Sam was possibly in danger. "Someone had to see him come into the building and see where he went."

"I'm really sorry, sir, but I can't help you with that," she said. "Would you like me to contact the police?"

"No, don't call the police. I'm just gonna call my dad," Dean said.

The door to the main office was shut behind him before the secretary could finish saying "I hope your brother's alright."

'Alright' was a high hope. 'Alive' and 'in the country' were just as acceptable to him, especially after the mess it had been tracking Sam the last time he disappeared.

He never wished it before, but he desperately hoped that Sam's disappearance really was of his own volition this time. He'd give Sam hell for it (certain that John would as well), but at least the kid wouldn't be facing any setbacks or new trauma.

With a deep breath, Dean dialed John's number. It rang for so long, he thought that he'd end up getting voice mail, but John picked up at what had to be the last second.

"Hey, Dad," Dean said. "Going to the school was useless. The most they can do is tell me he hasn't been there and offer call the police, but I told them not to."

"Can you think of anywhere he might have gone?" John asked. "Assuming that he left school of his own choice."

"If he wasn't at school, he was at the apartment and pretty much always right next to me. I don't have any clue where he would go," Dean said.

"God damn it. Just keep looking, Dean. Check all the usual places Sam would go in a normal town before _everything_."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

The first thing Sam was aware of was being in motion. More specifically, he was in a vehicle that was in motion.

He opened his eyes and saw Amy next to him. She was tied up and squirming, her eyes discolored and pupils narrowed to slits, both revealing her not-so-human nature.

 _The other boy was still unconscious, and Sam wasn't sure if he should be grateful or concerned. They both had to have been drugged, but maybe they gave the other boy too much? Maybe they didn't drug the other boy and knocked him out in a little more physical manner? There were no signs of head injury, and Sam though maybe he shouldn't question this._

 _Each moment the boy stayed unaware was another moment of trauma spared._

 _The van didn't soften any jostling from uneven roads—which seemed to be the only roads it was traveling. Every bump sent more pain through Sam's battered body, but there was no way to maneuver into a position to fix that. With his head by the back of the seats up front, he couldn't even shift to see who was driving._

 _He thought he felt helpless before, but the universe had to prove him wrong and show that he could, in fact, feel even more helpless._

 _If the universe wanted to show him kindness for once, it would have the driver turn on the heat for the van. It wasn't well-insulated and he could feel the bite of the near-autumn air, a bite intensified by the fact that he wore just shorts and a sleeveless shirt. Wind whistled across the front doors, and some seeped into the van through the cracks as drafts._

 _The other boy shivered in his sleep, and Sam knew he wasn't the only one the chill was getting to._

He was in another windowless van, and this time, even though it wasn't as cold, he still felt a draft. When he looked down, he saw that both his shirt and sweatshirt were gone, revealing the horrible mess of scarred skin that was his chest and back. He felt the air against his forearm, which was usually covered by one of the arm warmers from Dean. The only good part was that they left his pants and shoes on, but that didn't make the lack of some clothing any less horrifying.

He met Amy's eyes, but she looked away. He wondered how long she had to stare at him before he woke up. At least she hadn't been stripped of any of her clothes.

This was bad.

"Well, look who's awake."

Sam raised his head enough to look at the front seat, and saw the principal who'd been so excited to welcome him to school in the passenger seat staring back.

"I couldn't believe my luck when _you_ walked into the school as the new student," he said. "Everyone's got your picture, kid. The hair threw me off for a second, but the face matched. So did those numbers on your arm."

The driver looked at him from the rear view mirror with a grin that was more of a leer.

 _Sam noticed the man's leer first, smug like he already won some grand prize. With every step he took forwards, Sam pressed himself farther into the corner of his bed, torn between wanting to get away and not wanting to appear weak before his predator._

"You're either something really special, or you've really pissed off Liu for the price he put out for anyone who got you back to him," the driver said.

"You saw what he did in the woods," the principal said. "Little pyromaniac."

They'd been following him when he left school. That was the only explanation he could think of, and they wouldn't have been able to follow him if he hadn't needed to walk into the school to throw Dean off.

He held back the tears of frustration that welled in his eyes. This could not be happening again. Even worse, he had damned Amy with him this time. Only bad things happened to her when she hung out with him. Shouldn't they both know that by now?

God, he felt like an idiot.

Sam pulled against the ropes around his wrists that kept his hands behind his back and the matching set that kept his ankles together. His cell phone was in his backpack, which was clearly not in the back of the van.

Even if he got free, calling Dean wouldn't be an option.

Still, he had to do something before he drowned in the memories of being trafficked that kept being forced to the front of his mind with so much intensity, he felt like he was reliving them.

Amy didn't speak, and neither did he, but he knew that if he could come up with a plan, she would follow with it. She killed her own mother to save Sam, what would she do to save both herself _and_ Sam?

He sat up as much as he could again and looked out of the windshield. They were speeding down a crowded high way, the kind with too many lanes because the city itself was too big.

But it gave him an idea.

* * *

Dean scrubbed his hand down his face. He'd checked the library first, because Sam used to spend a lot of time there before anything happened to him. He spent a lot of time there back when he could be alone for more than a few minutes at a time (though he was apparently fine with being alone again now).

The only other place he could think of was that Sam might have gone to the park, and there was one nearby his school. It'd been years since Sam went to a park. Years since he'd decided he was too old for the jungle gyms and the swings.

" _Higher, Dean! Push me higher!" cried five-year-old Sam between laughs._

 _Dean rolled his eyes, but he couldn't fight the smile that crept onto his face._

 _There was so much darkness in the world that Sam didn't know about, not like Dean did. For Sam, the biggest threat was still the dark itself, not the creatures that could be lurking within it. If Dean could have his way, Sam would never have anything more than the dark to fear. But Dean already knew at the age of nine that things rarely went the way he wanted them to, so he'd settle for sheltering Sam for even a few more years._

 _This was one of the few times that Sam stopped asking questions that Dean couldn't really answer, not yet. Right now, there was just Sam, Dean, and a park filled with shrieking and laughter._

" _Okay, but not too high," Dean said. "I don't want you flying somewhere I can't find you."_

The swings at the park were silent compared to the laughter and creaking swing chains from his memory.

He walked the path through the park twice before a bag left by a bench caught his attention. Sam's backpack, specifically.

Dean had the bag in his hands within a handful of seconds, tearing it open and pouring the contents onto the bench with the desperate hope that something would give him a hint about where Sam was (or why Sam left his bag sitting in the park in the middle of a school day). He'd settle for a clue about why Sam had been skipping class.

Dean sifted through notebooks, folders, and even Sam's pencil case, but nothing helped him. Hell, almost everything was still untouched. All the pages of the notebooks were blank and all the folders were empty.

"God damn it," Dean yelled. He swept everything onto the ground. Sam wouldn't be needing school supplies, because Dean was never letting him out of his sight again.

While he double checked the bench area, a part of him hoped that Sam would pop out from hiding somewhere and say it was all a joke. Say he just wanted to give Dean a heart attack or grey hairs before he even reached his twenty-first birthday.

But when he found a cloth on the ground beside the bench, a sinking feeling in his gut told him this wasn't a prank. He grabbed it and brought it up to his nose, pulling it away immediately when he smelled the slightly sweet scent covering it. He looked over and saw another identical rag a few feet from the bench. When he picked it up, he smelled the same scent on it.

 _He threw the door open and turned on the light. The sight left him much more sober than he had been a minute ago. He wasn't sure at exactly which point he stopped breathing._

 _He took careful steps to the beds. The sheets of Sam's bed were in disarray and stained with blood. Another bloodstain was on the ground next to Dean's bed, a pool. Whoever was there was there for a while and bleeding out. His own silver knife laid next to that stain, and he hoped that Sam's hands spilled the blood. Not that the hands of strangers had spilled the blood of his brother._

 _In a last ditch cling to hope, Dean glanced at the bathroom. Empty and dark and open._

 _He fisted his hands into his hair, close to pulling chunks straight out of his scalp, and looked from one bit of evidence to the next. The blood. The bed. The knife. The emptiness. It all led him to the same heart-stopping, blood-freezing conclusion._

 _Sam was gone. Taken after a struggle that hadn't been enough to save him._

And shit, shit, shit. This wasn't a prank, it was serious. Dean couldn't get the memory of the time he came back to the motel room and found no Sam out of his mind.

His hands shook so much that he had to dial his dad's number three times before he got it right.

"Dad, Sam's been taken again. I found his backpack, but I found a rag, too, and I'm pretty sure there's chloroform on it," Dean said in one rushed breath.

Dean heard a crash on the other end accompanied by a string of loud curses.

"Where are you?"

"I'm at the park by his school," Dean said. "Dad, I think that someone else was with him and got taken, too. There were two rags."

"Stay where you are, Dean. I'll be there with Bobby in a couple of minutes."

John hung up, and Dean hoped that he wouldn't get in a car accident with how reckless he became with one of his sons in danger.

* * *

John wasn't lying when he said he would only be a couple of minutes. Dean paced the length of the park bench, trying to find any hint of useful information that he could, when he heard his dad call his name and jog over with Bobby right next to him.

Dean pointed over to the street. "I found one of the rags dropped a little that way, so I'm guessing it's where they went," he said.

John grabbed Sam's backpack and one of the rags, then went the way Dean pointed.

"You think it was Liu?" Dean asked as they got closer to the street.

John shrugged. "It would make sense. We know he might be in the area, and he has a reason to try and take Sam again."

"But that means we can save Sam and pump him full of buckshot in one swoop," Bobby said.

"Honestly," Dean said, "I'd settle just for the saving Sam part."

"What the hell?" John asked, stopping abruptly and crouching.

Dean moved up a few steps to see what caught his dad's attention, and he forgot how to breathe for a second. "What the fuck?" he asked.

Pieces of clothing were left next to the curb of an empty parking spot. Sam's sweatshirt, t-shirt, and the arm warmer Dean gave him.

John picked up the clothing and shoved it into Sam's backpack.

"Did they fucking strip him?" Dean asked. "Jesus…"

"I don't think it was like that, Dean," John said.

"You see half of his clothes on the ground, and you don't think that's what happened? Really?"

John glared at Dean from over his shoulder. "The pieces removed were the ones that covered any evidence that he'd been a slave in the first place," John said. "If you could rein in your temper and think clearly, you might've thought of it, too."

Dean looked away from John's glare. "How are _you_ not losing your temper?" he asked.

"Because my son needs me to keep my head on straight," John said. "Your brother needs _you_ to keep _your_ head on straight."

Dean felt Bobby's hand fall onto his shoulder. "Never thought I'd say it, but your daddy's right, Dean. You can lose your temper later, when Sam is safe. For now, we all need to keep our heads clear, or we ain't gonna be of any use to the boy."

Dean took a couple of deep breaths. He could do this. He _would_ do this. Sam needed him.

* * *

Neither Sam nor Amy were gagged, but they stayed silent regardless.

He had a plan. It wasn't a great plan (it was a horrible plan), but it was the only plan that gave him and Amy a chance. It was the only one that would make sure they at least wouldn't be sold.

He had to act fast, before the adrenaline wore off and left him at the mercy of traffickers and flashbacks that he wouldn't have the strength to fight.

With a deep breath, Sam closed his eyes and moved his hands until his fingertips touched the length of rope between his wrists. He'd never tried using his powers on something he couldn't see, but the rope was singed apart within seconds.

He opened his eyes and made sure that the men in the front seat hadn't noticed anything unusual, glad that the amount of smoke produced by such a small, short-lived flame was negligible.

He waited for longer than he probably needed, but he wanted to make sure that he wouldn't be caught due to his own carelessness. That already happened more times than he liked recently.

Disconnecting his ankles was much easier since he could see the ropes. Like his wrists, he left them tied individually so he could make it look like he was still bound completely.

He mouthed the words 'roll over' to Amy, glad when she followed his request.

He disconnected her ankles and wrists much quicker than his own, only sparing a quick glance to the front seat between each one to be sure that he wasn't being watched. He swiped the small trickle of blood from his nose before the men in the front noticed it.

When Amy rolled back over to face him again, the principal glanced over his shoulder at them. But turned around with a shrug. He wouldn't find anything out of the ordinary, they were both being far too careful to slip up like that now.

Only then did Sam dare to move his arms in front of him and point from Amy to the principal sitting in the passenger seat. Then, he pointed from himself to the man in the driver seat and mouthed the word 'crash'.

Amy nodded. If she was worried about the plan, it didn't show.

Sam counted down from three on his fingers.

Amy was a lot faster than he was. She was up and had her hands on either side of the principal's head, snapping his neck with a quick twist in no time.

It was just another reminder that she wasn't human, no matter how much like one she looked.

The driver took his eyes off the road and they started veering (which started a chorus of honking from the many cars surrounding them). Sam leaned into the front seat and gripped the steering wheel. He turned them to the left and right into the passing lane, and other cars didn't have enough time to stop before they crashed into the van at high speeds.

The driver's seatbelt kept him more-or-less in place throughout the chaos, but Sam and Amy were violently jostled around the back.

He felt pain, but in too many places for him to narrow down where exactly it came from. Given the cracks he felt as he bumped into the sides (and probably ceiling and floor, too), he knew that at least a couple of his bones had to be broken. He hoped Amy was faring better, but that was a high hope. He should have known that a high speed crash on a busy highway would end badly, especially for two people without seatbelts keeping them in place.

For the first time, he realized that his plan might actually get him killed. He knew it was a possibility from the start (a very likely possibility), but thinking about it and experiencing it were too very different things.

Death was a far better option than being trafficked again, for both him and Amy, but it also meant that there was a lot he'd never get to say to Dean or his dad. He'd never even get to apologize for being a moron and getting himself into this situation in the first place.

His head collided with something hard and erupted with pain. His vision went white, then darkened as the world around him faded away.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** A lot of you assumed that Sam was going straight to being auctioned again, but he has some new tricks up his sleeve compared to last time and an accomplice with some fight in her. Either way, he's clearly not out of danger quite yet (as if he ever is). One cliffhanger right into another. Enjoy!

Thanks to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! I really appreciate the support from all of you for this story.

Leave your thoughts before you go?


	9. White Walls

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

 **Warning:** Language, and most likely inaccurate medical information. I am not a doctor or in any sort of medical field.

* * *

He opened his eyes to blurred images of too bright lights and blue rubber glove hands hovering all about him, poking and prodding.

A woman's face came into his line of sight. While he could tell her mouth was moving, he couldn't hear her. He couldn't hear anything over the high-pitched ringing in his ears.

His head turned to the side, more of its own accord than from his control, and he saw Amy strapped onto a stretcher. People (paramedics, his sluggish mind remembered) were around her and moving in a rush.

He watched her stretcher be loaded into the ambulance.

He watched the van's roof above him turn into sky, then into the roof of the ambulance as he was loaded in after.

And then there was darkness once again.

* * *

The Impala had been taken back to the apartment and safely stowed in one of their two allotted parking spots, and Dean sat in the backseat of his father's truck while they drove through the streets of Austin. Hours passed since he found Sam's backpack in the park, and he never felt like they grew any closer to finding him.

He found Sam's cell phone in one of the backpack's side pockets, displaying the abundance of missed calls from Dean.

Gluing the phone to Sam's hand when they found him sounded like a pretty good idea. How was it useful if Sam never had it with him when it mattered?

"They could be out of Austin by now," Dean said. "They had a long enough head start, and we don't even have a start."

"Would you rather sit in the apartment and wait?" John asked.

Dean stayed silent. Sure, they were doing _something_ , but it felt more like moving in circles than making progress.

He watched the sun start to set from the window. The winter days were shorter, but the end of the day signal from the sun solidified Sam's absence.

He'd gone missing on Dean's watch again. He'd been _taken_ because Dean wasn't there again.

Dean grit his teeth together until it hurt. How could this keep happening? What did the world have against Sam?

John's phone rang and he looked at the caller ID. Despite the brief moment of visible confusion, he answered and pressed it to his ear.

"What?"

Dean's head almost knocked against the window as his dad swerved, then righted the truck and pulled over to the side of the road, putting the truck in park.

"What the hell happened?"

Dean leaned closer to his dad, but couldn't make out what the faint voice on the other line said.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm his father. Now, tell me what the hell happened."

Dean tried to get even closer to hear what was going on, but a glare from John stopped him. That, combined with the way his phone creaked under the pressure of his grip, meant that nothing good was being said, and he suspected that it had to do with Sam.

"Yes, of course. Do whatever you have to," John said. "But I need to know what happened. Where was he?"

Dean saw anger and worry form a dangerous mix on his dad's face, but he managed to stay relatively calm while he talked to the person on the other line.

And whatever they said next made anger overtake the worry.

"Fine," John said, his voice low and gravelly. More like a growl than speech. "I'm on my way."

He hung up and tossed his phone to the side.

"Who was it, Dad?" Dean asked. "What's going on?"

"Sam's in the hospital. They needed my permission to perform surgery on him since he's still a minor," John said. "They wouldn't tell me more than that."

"Balls," Bobby said.

John drove as quickly as he dared through the Austin streets (which was pretty damn fast), and Dean's mind raced through all the possible, horrible things that could have happened to Sam. The only blessing that came with the call was that they knew Sam was still alive (hurt bad enough to require surgery, but alive) and they knew where Sam was.

Dean watched the city speed by. He was angry at Sam for lying and ditching school. He was still angry, but now the worry was starting to consume him (along with an unhealthy dose of guilt and self-blame). There were too many what-ifs (the worst were the ones asking 'what if Sam didn't make it through surgery'). He wasn't there for Sam. Again. Now, Sam was hurt.

Again.

* * *

Dean was beaten into the emergency room only by his father, who immediately demanded to see Sam. They were redirected to a different waiting room by the surgical wing.

"I'm sorry, sir," said the nurse there. "He's still in surgery, but I'd like to ask you about some of his scars that we found."

John nodded and waved to Dean and Bobby to go take a seat. He could handle it on his own, it was how he preferred to do things, after all.

There weren't many people in the waiting room, and he supposed that was a good thing. There weren't too many people forced to hear about the physical state of someone they loved.

One girl was off to the side in a wheelchair, her leg in an unblemished white cast from her toes to right below her hip and one of her arms in a standard blue sling. She was a strange sight, sitting in the waiting room for surgery looking like she should be in one of the rooms herself, but he would have passed her by anyway.

If she hadn't been staring straight at him, narrowed eyes and mouth drawn into a thin line.

"What?" he asked.

"Are you Dean?" she asked.

"Why do you want to know?"

She nodded at John. "He's looking for Sam, and you came in here with him and the other man," she said. "Not exactly a quiet entrance."

"How do you know Sam?"

She didn't look like a trafficker, and there was no evidence of her being investigated over the matter.

"I was in the car wreck with him," she said. "So, are you Dean?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm Dean," he said. "Who are you?

He took the seat next to her, glad that he caught her stare and didn't pass her up (though the no nonsense attitude that radiated off of her meant she might not have let him just pass her by).

"Amy. You know, you mean a lot to Sam," she said.

Dean nodded, but he didn't have much to say in reply. He must not have meant much if Sam felt he had to beg to go to school just so he could have some alone time for a few hours. Dean would have given him space if he asked. Enough for independence, but not enough for Sam to land himself in trouble without help in sight.

"What the hell happened?" Dean asked.

"We were in the park, then there were men pressing rags over our faces. I think I passed out first, but I woke up in the back of a van—tied up—and Sam was there, too," she said.

Her soft words sounded laced with sadness, but Dean noticed the way she never fully took her eyes off him. The way she was always guarded and shifted around in the wheelchair like it was never comfortable.

Dean didn't blame her for not trusting him. It had to be hard enough to talk with a stranger after being kidnapped.

"What did they want?"

He suspected he already knew the answer.

"Sam, I think," she said.

John came over and sat by them. Bobby sat in the row of chairs across from them, giving them an illusion of privacy.

"Dad, this is Amy," Dean said. "She was taken with Sam."

He turned his attention back to Amy. "What did they do that made you think they recognized him?" Dean asked.

"One of the men called Sam his new student and said that everyone had his picture. And something about the numbers on his arm."

"Was there anything else they said?" Dean asked.

"They talked about some bounty put out for Sam," Amy said. "And we crashed."

They had to be traffickers, and a bounty being placed on Sam was not something they needed to deal with on top of everything else.

"Were you able to see how hurt Sam was in the crash?" Dean asked.

Amy looked worse for wear, and would be recovering for weeks to come, but she obviously hadn't needed surgery for any injuries if she was sitting there so soon after being injured (or hadn't needed emergency surgery, at the very least).

"No, I'm sorry," she said. "My injuries looked worse than they were, but I think his were worse than they looked. The doctors wouldn't tell me much since I'm not family."

Dean looked at his dad. "Did they tell you?" he asked.

John nodded. "He's having surgery for internal bleeding," he said. "A few of his ribs were broken, and they think they ended up puncturing at least one organ."

Dean hunched over, his forearms rested on his knees, and let out a long sigh. Keeping Sam safe felt like fighting a battle he knew he would always lose. No matter what he did or how hard he tried, Sam got hurt anyway.

He still had so many questions for Amy, but Sam was alive and that was all he cared about for the moment. Sam was going to get hell from all of them, but he'd escaped being trafficked again.

"John," Bobby said, "I think it would be best if we take Sam back to my place and let him heal far away from the traffickers here."

Dean watched John, hoping that he would agree with Bobby this time. They could always track down the traffickers another time, and they obviously knew that Sam was in the city. The longer they stayed, the more dangerous it'd be for him.

And the last thing Sam needed was more trauma.

The lines in John's face grew deeper. He ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. "Fuck," he said. "I know. I know, it's just… Damn it, we were so close this time."

"People like this don't usually pursue other careers, there will be another chance," Bobby said. "There's no need for us to push ourselves, especially when Sam needs us."

John nodded, but he looked far from happy. "Sam has a lot of explaining to do," he said.

Dean nodded. He had a lot of his own questions for Sam.

* * *

His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat, and his memories returned in fragments.

The park.

The van and Amy.

The crash.

He was in too much pain to be dead, so he ruled that out (unless death was horribly painful instead of peaceful and they were all misled).

"Sammy?"

Sam cracked his eyes open into a squint.

"Sammy, you in pain?"

Sam had no idea how Dean always managed to read him so well, but it was times like these that he was unimaginably grateful for it.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought that Dean should be pissed at him. He should be yelling at him, not checking if he was in pain.

But that was one of the things about Dean that made him _Dean._ Even if he was pissed and wanted to tear Sam's throat out, he'd always make sure Sam was okay first. After all, Dean couldn't kick his ass if he wasn't alive for him to do it.

Even the slight nod he managed made the throb in his head worse, and there was something on his face, covering his nose and mouth, but it was too difficult to really concentrate on anything or try to reason out what was going on.

"I'll get the nurse, okay?" Dean asked. "She'll give you some of the good stuff and everything's gonna be just fine."

Sam could barely make out the shape of Dean in his blurred vision, but he was certain that there were two other people in the room as well, silent and watching from off to the side.

Then, a woman hovered over him, and the design on her scrub top danced until he was dizzy and nauseated.

"Don't worry, sweetie," she said. "You'll feel much better in just a minute, okay?"

His head lolled to the side and he saw her arms moving around by the mess of medical equipment next to his bed.

The pain faded, but his consciousness went along with it.

* * *

His head didn't hurt as much when he woke up again. He didn't know whether it was due to good pain medication, or if he was out long enough for it to have healed up a bit.

He remembered a lot more of what happened, and he remembered hearing and seeing Dean the last time he was semi-conscious and wracked with pain.

"Sammy?"

But he didn't want to deal with Dean right now. He knew that he was going to receive many lectures while he was stuck in a hospital bed and unable to avoid them. And he already knew that what he did was beyond stupid, that he should have told his family he wanted some time to himself instead of lying and sneaking off on his own. He knew that there were traffickers in the area, that was the entire reason they came to Austin in the first place.

He kept his eyes closed and hoped that Dean would leave him alone for now.

"Sammy, I know you're awake," Dean said.

But of course, Dean wouldn't leave him alone after everything. He had to be dying for answers. Sam heard him bouncing his leg on the ball of his foot on the tiled floor, a nervous habit he'd had for as long as Sam remembered.

"Sam, open your eyes," his dad said.

Great, Dean was mostly bearable even after he made his worst mistakes, but his dad's fury was something straight from nightmares. Sam figured he'd be lucky to ever be allowed to leave whatever dump they called home over the next ten years.

Sam opened his eyes to the eggshell white of the hospital room ceiling, resigning himself to the inevitable.

"What the hell, Sam?" Dean asked.

Sam tilted his head towards Dean.

"What were you thinking?" he asked. "Why would you ditch class and wander off on your own when you know why we came here in he first place? Did it never cross your mind that it might not be a good idea?"

Sam stared at him for a long while, but he didn't have anything to say in his own defense. He knew it was a bad idea, and he did it anyway.

Dean had his fists clenched, and he was almost shaking in a cross between anger and worry. Enough anger that his face was the faintest shade of red.

"You aren't going back to school, Sam," his dad said.

Sam tilted his head to the other side to face his dad instead of Dean.

"You'll get your GED like Dean did, and even that's a maybe," he said. "You've made it very clear that we can't trust you. You wanna tell us what you've been doing when you should have been in school?"

Sam shook his head. Let them be angry with him, it was better than them finding out just how much of a monster he became and having them hunt him.

Although, that might not be the worst outcome. If anyone was going to kill him, at least they'd make it quick out of respect for who he used to be. They'd give him peace without torturing him first, or using him like a supernatural hunting dog.

The more he thought about it, the more appealing it became.

"Fine," John said. "Was it hanging out with that girl, Amy? Was it worth almost dying for?"

Sam shook his head, because it wasn't about hanging out with Amy. That was never planned. Whether or not practicing his pyrokinesis was worth dying for, he didn't have an answer for that. Sometimes, he felt like he would die if he _didn't_ use them, like it would build up inside him until he burned to death internally.

"You want Liu dead, don't you?"

Sam nodded.

"Then, why would you go and destroy the first chance we got to finally find him?" John asked. "God damn it, Sam! Did you think at all?"

John didn't give him time to answer before he stormed out the hospital room.

"Sammy," Dean said once the sound of their father's footsteps faded away. All of the previous anger in him had been drained away. "Sammy, he's just upset."

Sam shook his head.

Dean moved a few steps closer, as close to the bed as he could get without climbing on top of it. "No, Sammy, he is. You know how much it freaked him out to spend the day looking for you, only to get a phone call because you'd been in a car crash and he had to give permission for them to operate? Do you even know how much damage that wreck did to you?"

Sam shook his head. He didn't know the exact damage, but the way his head hurt earlier had to mean that it took a nasty hit or two.

"Where do you want me to start?" Dean asked. "You have some broken ribs, which shish-kebabed your organs and the doctors had to surgically stop the bleeding. You snapped your wrist, too."

Sam lifted his arms as much as he could. The right one felt heavier, and he saw the white cast weighing it down.

"And," Dean continued, "you topped those off with one hell of a concussion and so much bruising that your skin is more purple than it is white. You're looking at a pretty unpleasant recovery."

Sam shrugged. If he was going to be under their watch for the rest of his life anyway, it didn't matter how long it took him to recover. He wouldn't be allowed to do very much, regardless of whether he was healthy or healing.

"Why were you skipping school, Sam?" Dean asked. "Why'd you lie?"

Dean looked so broken when he asked, his voice cracking the slightest amount, and for each moment that Sam didn't answer, the despair in his eyes looked deeper.

"I'm sorry," Sam said, his words muffled by the oxygen mask.

A small smile spread on Dean's face, but it was far from happy. Far from his signature cocky grin. "I don't think you're sorry for the right things, Sammy."

He was sorry for a lot of things, but he couldn't stop repeating Dean's words in his head.

Was he sorry for the right things?

* * *

A nurse wheeled Amy into the room a few hours later.

John hadn't returned. Dean said that he was helping Bobby take care of the details for moving out of the apartment, but they didn't have enough belongings for it to take that long. He appreciated Dean trying to make him feel better by lying, but he knew it was more likely that John was at the bar, drinking away his anger.

Amy looked between him and Dean.

Dean smiled at her and said, "Hey, Amy. Thanks again for identifying Sam so we could find him."

Sam hadn't thought about how his family got there, but it made sense that Amy could give enough information to the hospital to find them. His school was right next to the park they were at, and his school had a list of real emergency contacts in case he broke down while there.

He wondered how different things could have turned out if one of those things were not true. Would he just have died without his family knowing until it was far too late?

Amy's smile was shaky and forced. When confronted by traffickers, she was confident and dangerous. In front of Dean, she was guarded and uncomfortable.

Sam wondered if he would become the same way, always having to be on guard because of hunters. Always having to be careful that no one saw the monster beyond his human facade.

"Dean, could we have a minute?" Sam asked.

Dean narrowed his eyes at Sam, but surprisingly didn't protest. "I guess I don't have to worry about either of you making a break for it," he said. "Ten minutes, Sam, and I'll be right in the hall the entire time."

Dean left and closed the door, but Sam almost expected that he'd have his ear pressed against it, trying to catch any bit of the conversations that he couldn't start because Sam wouldn't respond to his attempts.

Sam moved his oxygen mask off, hoping that his oxygen levels wouldn't drop low enough to draw attention. "I guess we'll have to talk softly," he said. "Dean's probably listening, or trying to."

"How are you holding up?" Amy asked.

Even though Sam was the one who got her into trouble (twice, now), she looked so sad.

"I'm not feeling much," Sam said. "Whatever they're giving me must be pretty good. What about you?"

"I'm glad you're feeling better, and I'll be fine. Dislocated shoulder and my leg is, well, busted. It all looked worse than it really was, and I'll be back to normal in a week or two. But that's not really what I meant."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I know."

"So?"

Sam shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I mean, you saw my scars and everything. What happened back then and what happened to us is something that I'll never be able to forget. It'll always be there."

"Still sure you don't want to run away together?" she asked with a small, short-lived smile. "I don't think you want to stick around hunters, not after what I saw you do."

"They're still my family."

"What happens when they find out?" she asked. She kept her voice soft and calm, like she was trying to talk a child into being reasonable.

"Then, at least they'll give me a quick death," Sam said. "I'm sorry, Amy. I just can't go with you."

"I understand, Sam. I do. I just don't want to see you get hurt anymore," she said. She pulled out a little business card that she had tucked by her leg in the wheelchair. "This is one of the doctor's, but I wrote my cell phone number on the back. That phone is one of the few things I'm glad my mother forced me to have, even if they aren't all that popular yet. Promise me that you'll call if you ever need me."

"Yeah, I promise," he said.

Getting the card from her hand to Sam's took a little more effort on both of their parts than either would have liked (and Sam thought for a second that he might have torn a stitch or two in the process).

"Well," Amy said, "I'm going to try proving to the nurse that my shoulder is fine now and I can use crutches, then get out of here. I've pushed my luck a little too much already."

"Amy, I'm so sorry for everything."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for, Sam," she said. "I really wish the best for you."

They spent the rest of their ten minutes in comfortable silence. Maybe there was a lot left unsaid between them, but they both knew where they stood and that it wouldn't change.

And it wouldn't have to be a permanent goodbye, not when Sam now had a way to contact Amy at any time. He just hoped that Dean found his cell phone in his backpack back at the park.

Dean came back in the room. "Time's up, kids," he said.

He looked between them, and the large grin slid off of his face. Dean's mind probably went to all the wrong places, and Sam wondered if he realized that neither of them were in a condition to do much of anything other than sit or lay (despite the fact that Amy claimed she would be healed up quickly and her shoulder was already well enough for crutches).

Amy slipped her arm out of her sling and started wheeling herself to the door. "Maybe I'll see you around, Sam," she said.

"Yeah, maybe."

She disappeared from the room, and Sam wondered if they would see each other again, or if one of them would be killed before they got the chance.

Dean pulled his oxygen mask back over his nose and mouth. "Gotta leave this on, Sammy," he said. "It's helping you."

Dean took his normal seat beside the bed. "Have a nice chat?" he asked.

Sam shrugged. "It was okay."

* * *

Some moments left Dean wishing he could crack open Sam's head and see what was inside.

Sam was back to barely speaking, which meant that he also wasn't answering questions or explaining what the hell he was doing in the park and not in school in the first place. Dean expected setbacks in his recovery. He really had. But expecting something and experiencing it were two very different things.

Bobby came to sit with him and Sam. John hadn't been back yet, and Dean could only excuse his absence for so long.

"Dean or your daddy tell ya we'll be heading back to my place?" Bobby asked Sam.

Sam shook his head, and all it did was remind Dean once again that they were back to gestures instead of verbalization. For all intents and purposes, they were back at square one.

And that was _not_ okay.

"A lot safer than sticking around here," Bobby said. "And I got a friend to track down one of those dreamcatchers you boys wanted."

Dean didn't want to get his hopes up, but if that dreamcatcher could be the one thing that works out for them, he'd appreciate it. He just wanted to be able to put one piece of Sam back together. He wasn't sure he'd be able to piece all of Sam together, but just _one piece_ would be enough. It would be a start.

"Can't wait to try it out, Bobby," Dean said. "Ain't that right, Sammy?"

Sam didn't have the oxygen mask anymore, and that was a welcome sight. He still looked on the verge of death, but he was coming back from it. Unfortunately, despite the fact that there wasn't anything over his face that would muffle his words, but he kept them to himself most times.

He didn't even acknowledge Dean most times, and this was one of them.

"Don't worry about your dad, either," Bobby said. "He overreacts. We knew that we might not get Liu this time before we even came all the way down here. We'll keep trying, but your health is more important, Sam."

"Actually," Sam said, "I think I have a plan. To get Liu."

When he flicked his eyes towards Dean, then firmly focused them on his own hands, Dean knew that whatever the plan was, he wasn't going to like it.

He wasn't going to like it at all.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** It's late. I'm sorry. My semester started and it ended up being a lot more stressful and busy than I first thought it would be, but I will continue to do my best and update as frequently as possible. Please continue to bear with me in the process.

Amy bows out for now, but Sam at least has a way to contact her this time.

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, favorites! If you could leave a review before you go, I'd appreciate it. I thrive on them.


	10. Remember, Remember

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

"So, you gonna share your plan with the class, Sammy?" Dean asked.

"Should wait for Dad," Sam said.

"How about you tell me right now, Sam, and I'll decide whether or not it makes it to Dad's ears."

"Go a little easy on him, Dean," Bobby said. "Life hasn't exactly been easy for the kid lately."

"No, Bobby," Dean said. "I've tried going easy on him. I've tried giving him time, and I've tried giving him space. But the thing is that _nothing_ I've tried has worked so far."

Dean did this with their dad too many times for Sam to count, and he always hated it. They talked about him like he wasn't there.

"I don't know what you want from me, Dean," Sam said. "I don't have anything to give you."

"How about some answers, Sam?"

Sam couldn't look at Dean. If he saw the anger in Dean's face, it would just make him more angry, too. "I don't have answers, Dean."

"Why not?" Dean asked. "Why can't you tell me why you were lying? Why can't you tell me why you were skipping class after begging to be enrolled? _Why_ Sam?"

Dean gripped Sam's chin and forced him to look at him.

And it wasn't Dean's hand. It was Rich's, and Jerry was unscrewing the cap of a warm, bottled protein shake.

And he couldn't breathe. He couldn't _breathe._

"Sammy?"

Black crept into the edges of his vision, and his lungs were so empty that it hurt.

"Hey, Sammy, you gotta calm down," Dean said. "You gotta breathe."

If he had access to air, Sam would have laughed. Didn't Dean get that telling someone to calm down generally _didn't_ calm them down? He couldn't calm down, and it wasn't like he wanted to be unable to breathe.

"Shit, shit, shit," Dean said. "Bobby, go get help."

He heard Dean's voice continue on for awhile after that, but the words he said stopped registering with Sam's brain. It was like he was speaking an entirely different language. Familiar, but foreign all the same.

There was a chorus of footsteps, then a quick prick in his arm. It was nothing more than a bug bite, practically painless.

The weight on his chest that kept him from breathing left, and he sucked in the sharp scent of antiseptics used to mask the stench of death and disease. The sudden numbing weightlessness that followed was a welcomed change.

* * *

Dean watched Sam's eyes close as his breathing slowed and deepened. His hands were still shaking from the rapid onset of whatever Sam just slipped into. One of the nurses called it a panic attack.

Dean never wanted to witness Sam go through one again. The flashbacks so far had been different. Even if they left Sam vomiting or on the verge of it, he could still breathe.

Bobby sat on the other side of Sam's bed. "Dean," he said.

"I know," Dean said, not waiting to hear the rest of what Bobby had to say. "You said to go easy on him, but I didn't listen. I should have."

"You have the right to be frustrated, Dean," Bobby said. "Anyone would be frustrated and angry if they were put in your position, but you can't deal with that the way that you normally do. Just like your daddy shouldn't be out drinking and dealing with his emotions the way _he_ normally does. Sam's mindset isn't the same as it used to be. It's fragile and volatile, and it can't handle things the way it could before everything happened."

"You think I haven't noticed that he's different?" Dean asked.

"Dean, I didn't mean it like that. He's just wounded. He needs to heal."

"No, he is different, Bobby. And he's lying and hiding something that's getting him hurt. That's not okay. I just… Bobby, why doesn't he _trust_ me anymore?"

"I wish I had the answers," Bobby said. "I don't know why he won't tell you what he's been up to. Maybe he's afraid."

"Why would he be afraid of me?" Dean asked. "He knows I would never hurt him."

Dean thought back over the past months. He wasn't lying, he hadn't intentionally hurt Sam. But he neglected Sam when it mattered the most. He left Sam behind to go get a drink, and he wasn't there when Sam needed him to help fight off the traffickers.

And he wasn't there when Sam spent a month going through things that he was only given glimpses of, things that Sam never quite talked about.

When he thought about it, Sam had plenty of reasons to not trust him. Hell, Sam had plenty of reasons to hate him, or be pissed at him. But he only lashed out when Dean pushed him too far.

"You wouldn't hurt him," Bobby agreed. "At least, not intentionally. But maybe he thinks that whatever it is will make you look at him differently. Think of him differently."

"What?"

Bobby laughed. "You're really clueless, aren't you? That boy wouldn't care how God himself judged him. The only judgment he ever cared about was yours."

Dean's mind went blank. He tried to think of anything he could use to refute Bobby's argument, but all that came to mind were the times that Sam did something successfully for the first time. He always looked up at Dean with a proud smile and waited for a response with huge eyes.

It was never their dad that he looked up to first, even the few times he was around.

"Lot to take in, isn't it?" Bobby asked. "Realizing how much another person looks up to you."

"He shouldn't," Dean said. "I've let him down so many times, Bobby."

"Maybe, but you've always saved him, too."

* * *

Sam was released a couple of days later, and it reminded Dean too much of the last time Sam left a hospital. Instead of being despondent, though, he was more drained. Sometimes, he was plain angry.

Dean helped him dress in comfortable clothes, the arm warmer wasn't necessary, not when the numbers were mostly covered with a cast holding Sam's bones in place. There wasn't much he could do to hide the bit of the tattoo that the cast didn't cover.

The horrible scarring on his back was hidden, but catching a glimpse of it while helping Sam left Dean almost running into the adjoining bathroom and losing his meals from that day. The flesh there that was supposed to be smooth was filled with the rough, raised scars that criss-crossed and looked like they still hurt.

Dean couldn't imagine the pain of receiving them. The first times he saw them, he had too much on his mind to really stop and think about their origin. His priority had been Sam being alive and staying that way.

Dean helped Sam get on the mandatory wheelchair to be wheeled out, but he knew that Sam wouldn't have made the trip through the hospital and to the car without it. Getting to a bathroom only feet away from his bed took all of his effort.

John showed up, but he kept his distance and didn't say much. Dean figured that Bobby wasn't lying when he left the hospital room after Sam's panic attack to go talk some sense into John.

They were given a bag with everything they needed to take care of Sam's injuries, and sent on their way through the halls.

"Dean," Sam said, "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry, Sam," Dean said. He knew exactly what Sam was talking about, even if it happened days ago. "You've been through a lot, and I shouldn't have lost my temper like that."

'PTSD' had been whispered several times during Sam's hospital stay. The doctors said that it was a possibility for Sam, and a likely one. They wanted to get him a real mental evaluation once he felt a little better. They wanted to be able to give him the help he needed to heal.

Which wasn't surprising. Once his dad told the staff about Sam's history being trafficked, and the attempt to drag him back into that world of depraved humanity, the entire staff started coddling Sam. They pitied him, and Sam hated it (but Dean loved when they gave him extra pudding cups waiting to be stolen).

Sam never had to say a word for Dean to know, he saw it written all over his face.

"When you grabbed my chin like that," Sam said, "I thought I was back with Jerry and Rich."

Sam spoke softly, only meaning for Dean to hear.

"I'm sorry," Dean said again.

"They did it to make me drink protein shakes. Held my head still by my chin," Sam said. He paused for long enough that Dean figured he wouldn't be saying more, but he did. "Just enough that I wouldn't lose too much weight or anything. Looking healthy meant they could get more for me."

He said it in a matter-of-fact way. Emotionlessly, even though Dean witnessed more than once that the event left an impact on Sam, and Dean hated himself for bringing those memories to the forefront of Sam's mind more than once. It explained the way he freaked out when Dean first tried to give him a protein shake back at Pastor Jim's.

And the way he freaked out and got angry at the pharmacy when Dean pointed out the PediaSure.

And why he had a panic attack a couple days ago when Dean tried to force Sam to look at him.

"I'm sorry," Dean said. He was starting to feel like it was the only thing he could say, but that didn't mean it felt like enough.

"You didn't know."

"I made you think you were reliving it, what, three times?" Dean asked. "Even if I didn't know, that's not okay."

"Well, now you know," Sam said. "It doesn't matter."

"It damn well does matter," Dean said. "I made you relive it. I couldn't stop it from happening in the first place, and it's my fault that you suffered so much. All because I couldn't just listen to Dad that time and leave a case that wasn't even ours alone."

He caught his dad glaring at him over his shoulder, and he realized that he rose his voice a bit too much through his rant.

He shut up and pushed Sam the rest of the way to the exit in silence.

* * *

John opened the door to the backseat of the Impala and helped settle Sam in the mess of blankets and pillows that had been taken from their former apartment. Sam expected the job would be given to Dean, but this was probably the closest thing that he would be getting to an apology from his dad for his outburst in the hospital (even if Sam agreed with him this time that he screwed up for selfish reasons).

Once he was about as comfortable as he would be getting, a pile of pills was shoved into his hands with a water bottle.

"It's a long way to Bobby's," John said. "You're going to want to take all of those."

Sam wouldn't argue with that. The trip down was long and miserable without being injured. He hoped that the medication cocktail his dad gave him would be enough to knock him out for the duration.

John took the wheel, and Dean sat in the passenger seat up front, keeping his eyes on Sam in the back.

As much as the Impala felt like home, riding it in with broken ribs was torture, and the medicine was either taking too long to start working, or it wasn't working nearly well enough. Every little bump sent waves of pain through him, and he curled his broken arm around his abdomen while he held onto the seat with his good hand.

They followed Bobby as he drove John's truck, and Sam almost wished he were riding in that instead. From the few times he had, he knew that drives were a little smoother in it.

"You doing okay?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head. Less than an hour (or an eternity, if Sam's internal clock was to be believed), and he wanted to stop. Every injury throbbed with relentless pain. His head. His ribs. His arm. His entire battered body.

John took the bag the hospital gave them from Dean and dug out another bottle of pills, keeping one hand on the steering wheel and swerving only a couple of times while he searched. He handed it back to Sam, despite Dean's protests.

"Sleeping pills," he said. "The doctors strongly believe that you have PTSD and gave us some more in case you had trouble sleeping. And because of the few nightmares they witnessed while you were there."

Sam kept the bottle out of Dean's reach as he tried to grab for it.

"Only take two of them, Sam," Dean said.

Sam popped open the bottle and poured pills into his hand, ignoring Dean and shoving them into his mouth as Dean finally managed to grab the bottle and tried to stop him. He washed them down with the water bottle that his dad left in the back with him as Dean watched with worry and anger.

"I said to take two, Sam. What the hell?" he asked.

Sam laid back down and shut his eyes. Dean kept scolding him, but he just tuned it out and waited for the pills to finally kick in.

* * *

Fifteen fucking hours, and Sam barely stirred. His breathing was deep and even, and he looked peaceful, but Dean felt the same knot of worry as he had when they first holed up at Pastor Jim's. The same worry he felt when he figured out how many sleeping pills Sam took when they were in his possession and he spent the night watching just to make sure Sam didn't stop breathing.

The familiar scent of the Impala had been welcome at first, but it was contaminated by the scent of hospital that still lingered on Sam. The smell of sickness and wounds and medication.

"He's fine, Dean," his dad said. "He needs the rest."

But it was better than the reek of alcohol that had been on John's disheveled clothes as they were preparing for Sam's discharge. But at least he changed out of them and was sober for the moment.

"Why did you give him the bottle instead of me?" Dean asked.

"You know what a car ride with broken ribs feels like. The normal dose probably wouldn't have been enough to keep him out through the entire ride," John said.

"So you'd rather have him fucking force himself into a medicated coma?"

"He's not in a coma, Dean," John said, his voice even. "You're overreacting."

"I'm overreacting?" Dean asked. "I think that I've been the only rational one in this family lately! Sam apparently thinks it's okay to be alone in a city filled with people who want to ship him back to Liu, and that he can take as many pills as he damn well pleases if it makes the pain go away. You think it's okay to blame your already traumatized son for ruining a hunt that we knew might not succeed in the first place while he was in the hospital. Then, you go and spend a couple of days drinking yourself numb and you come back pretending that nothing happened."

"Watch your tone, Dean," John said, his voice a low growl. "I know that I fucking messed up, okay? I know that Sam needs me, but I don't know _what_ he needs from me."

Dean slumped down a bit in his seat and nodded. "I don't understand why he's hiding something from us. Doesn't he know that he can trust us?"

He thought back to Bobby's suggestion that Sam was afraid that whatever it was he was hiding would make Dean look at him differently. But Dean had seen Sam in some awful situations, what could he possibly think would make him look at him differently, and in a negative way?

"Maybe it's part of PTSD," John said. "We'll have to do some research on it."

"So we can just write it off and solve it by shoving more pills down his throat?" Dean asked.

"No, so we can give your brother the help that he needs."

Dean kept silent, and turned his attention to Sam in the backseat, still unaware of the world around him. He looked peaceful, but the term 'PTSD' hovered over Dean's head. Post-traumatic stress disorder, but wasn't that supposed to be for soldiers? It shouldn't be applied to someone like Sam, who had to pay for the mistakes of his father and brother, and giving it a name made it too real. It made it harder to pretend that Sam would be able to just snap out of it one day and revert back to how he was before being taken.

It could take years to deal with PTSD, or it could be something that Sam had to deal with for the rest of his life.

"It's not fair," Dean said.

John glanced at him, but didn't say anything.

"It should be me back there," Dean said. "It should have always been me in Sam's place. It should have been me suffering. It was all my fault."

"There's enough blame for both of us, Dean," John said. "There's also enough blame for Sam because of his decisions in Austin."

"But something made him desperate to get away from us. He didn't run away for nothing. It's _Sam_ ," Dean said.

"Sam's different now, Dean," John said. "We just… We can't know for sure anymore. What's _Sam_ and what isn't."

"He told me about the protein shakes," Dean said. "About why they make him freak out. I just wish he would tell me more."

"I know. I do, too."

* * *

Three days. It took only three days for Sam to be on the verge of losing his mind from being trapped in Bobby's house and under Dean's watchful eyes. Three days, because that's how long it took for the medication to clear from his mind and allow him to think again.

The couch felt scratchy the more he laid on it (Dean said it was his restlessness, not the couch) the same way his arm itched beneath his cast. It always smelled like soup and hot chocolate because those were warm and safe and Sam would eat and drink that way. He was constantly wrapped in more and more blankets that Dean kept finding because it was colder in South Dakota than it had been in Texas.

It never smelled of alcohol after the first night. Not when Sam got one whiff of it and was left gagging, which was made worse by his damaged ribs.

Dean told him that he spent the rest of the night not really there and whispering 'I can still smell it', 'I can still taste it', and a mess of incomprehensible nonsense in the middle.

John started leaving Bobby's house to go and drink, taking a set of spare clothes with him to try and lessen how much of the scent lingered on him when he first stepped back into the house.

John was gone for most of the three days.

Sam's head still hurt when it was too bright, so Dean put blankets over all of the windows. If any light got in before, it barely did now.

When the back door opened, Dean tensed, ready to defend or attack. Ready to put himself between Sam and any threat that presented itself.

Sam wanted to yell at him that he didn't have to waste his life like that. He didn't have to dedicate every second to watching him. Sam couldn't remember the last time that Dean went out and did something for himself. Something he enjoyed.

Dean never even got to go out and taste the fabled deliciousness of Texan barbeque because he was stuck on eternal babysitting duty.

John stepped through the door, followed by Bobby, but Dean still didn't relax until a minute later.

Sam watched Dean internally decide that there wasn't a threat and relax again, flipping the news on and keeping the volume of the TV low as a courtesy to the last remnants of Sam's concussion.

"It's February?" Sam asked, spotting the date in the corner of the screen.

John and Bobby joined them in the living room, each finding whatever seat they could. Sam almost held his breath, but he didn't smell alcohol in the slightest. They didn't say anything, just gave a nod of acknowledgment. Judging by the stains on their clothes, Sam guessed that they were out working on some of the cars.

"Yeah," Dean said. "It's February."

"Your birthday," Sam said. "I didn't even realize it."

"Sam, it's fine. We never really did celebrations anyway," Dean said.

"But you're twenty now."

"It's not a big deal, Sam," Dean said. "It's just a number, and I'd rather be doing something useful like helping you get better instead of going out and getting shitfaced to celebrate."

"You could if you wanted," Sam said. "Dad and Bobby are here now, so you don't have to worry about me, not like I've been allowed, or able, to do much more than lay around lately. You could go out and celebrate a late birthday. You _should_ go out and celebrate a late birthday."

"So that I can come back and give you flashbacks because I reek of alcohol?" Dean asked.

"If you wanted to go out and get some fresh air, you can, Dean," John said. "I can keep an eye on Sam."

Dean crossed his arms and sunk lower into his seat, making a show of getting himself comfortable. He changed the channel, and the date in the corner of the screen vanished. "Not goin' anywhere," he said.

Sam bit his tongue to keep from pressing the issue. He wanted to talk to their dad without Dean there, and he really did feel bad that Dean's birthday had been completely ignored because of him. It was just another thing for him to add to the far too long list of things he messed up.

After a stretch of silence that had a touch of tension to it, Sam figured that he wouldn't get a chance to talk to their dad without Dean hovering around. Not after the past few weeks. Not after the past few months.

"Dad?"

"Yeah, Sam?"

"I had an idea. About getting Liu," he said.

John leaned forwards, and put his full attention on Sam. "I'm listening."

Sam wasn't used to John waiting and willing to hear what he had to say like it had some importance. In the past, it always felt like John's mind was spread across so many issues that he had to think about, he could only spare a small part for his sons.

"He put a bounty on me," Sam said. "We should… Maybe we should collect it."

"Pretend to turn you in to get close to Liu?" John asked.

Sam nodded.

"Not happening," Dean said. "Besides, Dad and I already dressed up like pretend traffickers. They'd recognize us. I'm sure Liu would have found a way to spread our faces."

"You're right, Dean," John said.

Sam heard Dean's sigh of relief, and felt his own disappointment at failing to even come up with a plan rise.

"But," John continued, "Bobby hasn't."

Bobby shook his head. "You want me to pretend to hand Sam over to people we know want to hurt him?" he asked.

"We'll make sure that he isn't in any danger," John said. "We just need to draw Liu out, or grab one of his traffickers and find out where he is or how to contact him."

Bobby looked at Sam and asked, "This really what you want, kid?"

"Yeah. I need to do this, Bobby."

"If you need this, I guess I'll do it."

"Bobby, you can't be serious," Dean said. "You can't possibly think this is a good idea."

"We'll wait until he's completely healed, Dean," John said. "We'll be there, too. We're going to make sure Sam is safe through the whole thing."

Dean stood. "You know what?" he asked. "I think I will take up that earlier offer and go get shitfaced."

He grabbed the keys to the Impala, now available to him whenever he wanted, and said, "Lately, it feels like I'm the only reasonable one around here."

He left, slamming the door shut behind him.

* * *

Sam didn't know where Dean went, but it wasn't to a bar. He came back to Bobby's hours later, completely sober and without the scent of alcohol clinging to him.

They watched Bobby hang a dreamcatcher over Sam's bed.

"That'll really help?" Dean asked. "Sam won't need to take pills for a peaceful sleep anymore?"

"That's what we're gonna find out," Bobby said.

Bobby left and Dean helped get Sam settled on the mound of pillows that were added to his bed after the first night back at Bobby's, when it aggravated his injuries to lay flat.

"Do you want me to stay up?" Dean asked. "Just in case."

"No. If it works, great. If it doesn't work, well, I imagine that I'll end up waking you whether I want to or not," Sam said.

Dean turned out the light and settled himself on the other bed in the room.

Sam felt his body's exhaustion, but it seemed to have forgotten how to fall asleep without the help of medication. So he laid in the darkness with his eyes closed, waiting to see if Bobby found an answer, or if he'd have a visitor in his dreams.

"Sam?" Dean asked after awhile.

"What?"

"I'm sorry about earlier. I get that you want to take Liu out of the picture, _I_ want him out of the picture, too," Dean said. "I just wish that you weren't always being thrown into the front line of everything."

"It's fine, Dean. I get it. Sorry that I forgot your birthday."

"Don't worry about it, Sammy," Dean said. "You haven't been in your right mind these days."

Sam didn't want to tell Dean that he wasn't sure he'd ever be in his right mind again, so instead he asked, "Where did you go when you left earlier?"

"Just went for a drive."

* * *

 _The demon waited for him. He had his arms crossed and he tapped his foot like he'd been in that place for too long with nothing to do_ but _wait._

" _Sammy," he said. "I was wondering when you would be dreaming again. I have so much for you to see. You're just dying for answers, too, aren't you?"_

 _Sam nodded. He didn't tell the demon that this might be the last chance for him to get answers in his dreams because at the first sign of anything being wrong, Dean would be shoving sleeping pills into him every night again._

 _He suspected the demon knew that, too._

 _He wanted answers. He finally wanted to scrub away the fog from his memories, but he wasn't sure he was ready. Recovering had been almost easy with the unclear memories, he could just pretend that it was all a bad dream that he kept remembering throughout the day. A really bad dream, the kind that sink their claws into the mind and refuse to be removed._

" _Do you know where we are?" the demon asked._

 _It was too dark for Sam to tell, so he shook his head. Then, the door opened and moonlight and streetlight spilled into the room._

 _A group of men stepped in._

 _Sam started shaking, but did his best to hide it. He knew where they were now, because that was him laying in the far bed. Those men came to take him and sell him._

 _Sam knew he was in for a long night._

 _The demon replayed every single minute of events from the night Sam was captured, to the night that Dean rescued him. By the end, he wasn't trying to hide the shaking anymore. More than once, he fell to his knees and felt like he was going to throw up, but it was just a dream and nothing beyond that happened._

 _It was the longest dream of his life, and a nightmare, too. An entire month. He watched himself go through an entire month like a stranger, but he felt it all like it was happening to his disembodied dream self._

 _He felt the whip marks on his back. The cut on his leg. The way both hurt even against the soft sheets Liu provided. He felt every single touch from the customers allowed into his room. He smelled alcohol on their breath, cologne, and, most of all, incense that filled the room from his nightstand._

 _He never realized how much the drugs given to him dulled his senses until he was forced to experience and watch it all at the same time without their aid._

 _By the time Dean barged into his room at the club, Sam was nearly hyperventilating. He wanted to wake up. He_ needed _to wake up. Hell, he tried to wake himself up a long time ago, but the demon wouldn't let him leave yet. Not until he saw it all._

 _Not until Dean had him out of that room and on the way to safety._

He sat up, wide awake, and ignored his body's painful protests as he scrambled out of bed and to the bathroom.

* * *

Dean was up as soon as he heard a flurry of movement, and then the bathroom door shut. He took a quick glance at Sam's now empty bed and followed after him.

"Sammy?" Dean asked, knocking on the door.

He heard Sam gag, then vomit.

"Sammy? You okay?" Dean asked. His hand hovered over the doorknob, uncertain if he should barge in or give Sam some privacy. Uncertain of what Sam needed from him. "You need me to get you anything? You wanna talk about it?"

He heard Sam's choked voice from the other side of the door. "I remember," he said.

"What, Sam? What do you remember?"

"Everything."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** This chapter ended up a lot different from what I originally planned, but I hope it was still an enjoyable read!

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites, I really appreciate the support!

Leave a review before you go?


	11. Hurt to Heal

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Dean knocked on the bathroom door a few more times. "Sam? Sammy?"

He didn't hear much noise coming from Sam, but he figured it was a good sign that he seemed to have calmed down enough to stop gagging.

John and Bobby joined him in the hall.

"What's going on, Dean?" John asked.

"I don't know, Dad," Dean said. "He practically fell out of his bed in his rush to the bathroom and said that he remembered everything."

"Everything?" John echoed.

Dean nodded, and he swore that John grew a little paler in the dim light of Bobby's hallway.

"Dad?" Dean asked. "Something wrong?"

He felt like more secrets were being kept from him, and they probably had to do with Sam once again.

"Dad, if you're hiding something that has to do with Sam, tell me," Dean said.

John shook his head. "If Sam wants you to know, he'll tell you."

Bobby stepped into Sam and Dean's room and came back out a matter of minutes later. "Think you're both gonna wanna see this," he said.

They looked and saw the dreamcatcher in Bobby's hands, or what was left of it.

The woven web in the center was gone and the willow hoop that held it was scorched black. Even the feathers that dangled down from the hoop's base were not spared, half of them burnt away until a string was the only sign they existed in the first place.

"Sam told me that something was haunting his dreams. He asked what sort of creatures out there were capable of such a thing," Bobby said. "But I thought it was just his mind running rampant after all he's been through. Guess I should've listened to him."

"What the hell can do something like that?" Dean asked.

He should've stayed up and watched over Sam. He _knew_ he should've, but Sam made it sound so simple when he explained it wasn't necessary. So logical when he said that if a nightmare were bad enough, he'd end up waking Dean anyway.

Why did it seem like he could never make the right choices anymore when it came to taking care of Sam?

"I asked myself that same question. I gave Sam a few examples of the things that had the power, but I thought pinning down which one it was would be tricky. Then, I saw the sulfur sprinkled on the headboard of Sam's bed. Looks like he's got a demon stalking his dreams," Bobby said. He looked at the closed bathroom door. "I'm guessing it's one nasty son of a bitch, too."

Dean looked at his dad, who had his arms crossed and glared at the dreamcatcher with his face set in hard lines, like it was the cause of all his son's suffering.

And maybe it wasn't the direct cause, but it was proof that Sam was suffering more than they originally believed.

Dean knocked on the door again. "Sammy," he said. "Let me in, please."

There was so much more he wanted to say, but if he could even get Sam to open the door first, that would be an accomplishment. John and Bobby watched carefully, waiting for him to be able to break through to Sam, but he wasn't entirely sure that they should have that much trust in him.

He didn't deserve that much trust.

"Your ribs must be killing you, right?" Dean asked. "I know what it's like to throw up with broken ribs, man. I can get you something for the pain."

Dean heard Sam grunt and soft shuffles behind the door, then the knob turned and it opened just an inch or two. One of Sam's eyes peeked out into the hallway and at Dean, its sclera dyed bright red.

Dean didn't wait to give Sam the chance to close the door on him. He shoved his foot into the opening and slowly pushed his way into the room. With each step he took forward, Sam took a step back. He was hunched over with his arms wrapped protectively around his ribs. His breaths were a little too shallow for Dean's liking, especially with his occasional hitches and hisses. He was beyond relieved when Sam sat on the closed toilet lid. He didn't look like he could handle standing for much longer before he collapsed.

Sam stared down at the bathroom tiles, so Dean took a seat on the edge of the bathtub, his feet on the outskirt of Sam's line of sight. Close enough that he would know Dean was there, but far enough away that Dean wasn't crowding him.

"You wanna take your meds and get back to sleep?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head.

Dean clasped his hands together, pressing them against each other until it hurt, but it was better than letting his frustration escape when Sam was particularly fragile.

And they were about to throw him right back into what hurt him in the first place. If anything, Dean hoped that this would make Sam change his mind about playing bait. Dean hoped he would back down and let them find a different plan.

"Do you want to get comfy on Bobby's couch and we can watch some movies?" Dean asked. "It'll be like old times. Remember how many nights we spent camped out on that couch watching the handful of movies in Bobby's collection over and over when Dad left us here?"

" _I don't want to watch that one," eight-year-old Sam complained. "We always watch that one."_

 _Dean ignored him and put the VHS in the VCR anyway._

" _Dean," Sam whined, "let me choose for once."_

" _Too late," Dean said, already settling himself back on the couch with a bowl of fresh popcorn lathered in butter (courtesy of Bobby). "It's already playing. I'll let you choose the next one."_

" _No, you won't. You never do." Sam sunk into the couch, nearly swallowed by its cushions._

 _Dean flicked a piece of popcorn at Sam, and grinned when Sam pouted at him. "Maybe I will this time."_

" _You always say that."_

Sam sat still for a long time, but finally nodded.

"I'll even let you choose the movie this time," Dean said.

He got up and moved to help Sam stand, but Sam recoiled away from him anytime he came too close. Dean backed up with his hands raised in surrender. "Alright," he said. "I'm not gonna touch you, Sammy."

He wanted to promise Sam that he wouldn't hurt him instead, but he didn't think that it was what Sam was looking for at the moment. Whatever he remembered, touching was going too far for now, regardless of the intent to help.

 _Dean froze after he opened the door and the light in the hallway illuminated the scene before him. Those were Sam's eyes looking over at him, neon lights of his room reflected in them, but they weren't bright in the way he remembered. There was a distance in them. A fogginess that Dean knew wasn't natural. He'd seen Sam on medication before on hunts gone wrong. He knew the signs of detached confusion of a drugged Sam._

 _But his attention was drawn to the fact that there was a man_ _on top_ _of Sam. Added to the fact that the hem of Sam's shirt was pushed up to his armpits revealing his chest and stomach. And the fact that his wrists were chained to the bed high over his head._ _And_ _that the man, who now looked at Dean like a deer caught in headlights, had had his mouth on Sam's just a second ago._

 _Maybe the worst of it all, was that Dean saw that one of the man's hands was in Sam's boxers._

The memory was still enough to make Dean's stomach churn and bile crawl up the back of his throat, but it was a reminder that he only saw one moment of what Sam had to endure. He could understand his unwillingness to be touched after having to remember all of what he went through.

Whichever demon it was who did this to Sam, well, Dean was going to make them wish they never crawled out of Hell.

Sam stood on his own, each wobble making Dean wish that he could do something, anything, to help. Instead, he was left hovering around Sam, being so careful not to touch him, and watching him nearly pop a lung with one of his broken ribs as he made his way to Bobby's couch.

John and Bobby must have heard their plan, because the couch was already covered with a mound of pillows to keep Sam upright and another mound of blankets to keep him warm, and Dean could smell and hear popcorn being made over the stove top in the kitchen. A bottle of water sat on the end table between the couch and the recliner with a bottle of pills on either side. All of it left completely in Sam's hands.

Dean bit his tongue, keeping himself from asking his dad what the hell he was thinking. Didn't he remember that pills should not be left for Sam because he always took far too many?

As Sam settled on the couch, Dean took the pills off of the table and put them on one of the many bookshelves Bobby had. No way Sam would be able to reach them with his ribs.

* * *

Sam's ribs healed to the point where he could move around a bit easier, but he still needed a cast on his arm for another week or two. That wasn't enough to stop him from trying to elude Dean and hide away constantly.

Worst days and bad days both returned. Good days became the rare ones, and the ones where Sam couldn't stand anyone being too close to him. At least on the bad and worst days, he was too far gone to even realize another person's presence. He could still be easily maneuvered through his nonsensical ramblings (to which Dean paid close attention just in case Sam's rattled mind spewed out something useful).

Dean wanted to crack open Sam's skull and figure out the damage that was done by the demon stirring up his memories. He wanted to yell and pin down Sam until he told him what to do to fix it.

This time, Sam locked himself in the bathroom. Dean heard the shower running, but that never meant much anymore. Sam had locked himself in the bathroom before with the water on, then walked out later completely dry.

Dean sat on the ground with his back against the bathroom door. Bobby walked up the stairs and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Sam's in the shower," Dean said. "I'm waiting for him."

"You know," Bobby said, "maybe what he needs is a little bit of space."

"Not happening."

"Dean, you know your brother. That's how he deals with things. He likes to sit and think them through on his own," Bobby said.

"These aren't the normal things that he sits and thinks through. These are worse, and the last time I let him out of my sight didn't exactly go well."

"I'm not sure that your hovering is going to be what he needs right now."

"That's just it, Bobby," Dean said. "I don't know what Sam needs right now. He won't tell me. He won't give me any indication that I'm doing anything right or wrong. So, what am I supposed to do? Huh? How am I supposed to fix him if he keeps breaking?"

Bobby sighed and crouched down. He clapped his hand on Dean's shoulder. "He needs to fix himself. You just need to be there to give him the tools for it," Bobby said.

Bobby left, and Sam stepped out of the bathroom. His skin was reddish.

"I think you scrubbed your skin a little too hard, Sammy," Dean said.

"Then, why do I still feel so dirty?" Sam asked.

Dean hadn't an expected a reply at all. Sam finally gave him something to work with, but he was too speechless to take the opportunity.

* * *

Everything hurt, but his physical injuries were minor now, nearly healed. It was the memories that hurt. He could still feel it all like it was happening in present time, but he knew that it had to be something the demon did. People weren't supposed to recover their memories with help from something supernatural. It wasn't normal, but Sam hadn't been normal in a long time. He wasn't sure he ever was.

The flames flickering inside of him made him suspect that he was never normal. He had these powers, and he just needed to unlock them first. Set them free. Only now they wouldn't leave him alone, and his own family wouldn't leave him alone for long enough to use them.

Dean followed him. Dean was like his second shadow, but he wanted to be alone. He wanted Dean to give up because the answers he needed from Sam were the secrets that he never needed to find out.

Sam sat and watched TV, Dean right beside him on Bobby's couch and asking a dozen questions to try and figure out how to make Sam more comfortable ("Do you need anything, Sammy?" "Are you feeling okay?" "How are your ribs doing? Your head? Your wrist?"). It was a nice gesture, and Sam understood he was being difficult, but his thoughts were so loud and he just wanted a moment of peace.

"I think I killed them," he said, without really meaning to say anything at all, but that's what kept playing through his mind that day. He killed people. He killed humans. Bathed them in fire while they wailed and writhed in agony. He could almost smell their melting flesh and the incense that intertwined with it.

"Killed who?" Dean asked.

"At the club," Sam said, "I think I killed them."

"Some of the customers?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded.

"Good. They weren't human. The people who went there were more monstrous than the things we usually hunt. But I saw you at the club, Sammy. You were way too out of it to hurt anyone," Dean said. "Maybe the demon was messing with you and showing you false memories. They lie, Sam."

"It wasn't a lie," Sam said. "I know it wasn't, Dean."

"Okay, Sammy. I believe you."

The news anchor on the TV screen moved onto the next story while Sam and Dean sat in silence. A picture of a young boy appeared on the screen under the word "Missing". The picture was obviously taken on school picture day (which was every other week for Sam with how often they moved and how every school insisted on taking a new one for their own records). The boy's smile was strained, a little uncomfortable, and he was looking off to the side instead of at the camera. The photo background was the classic blue that every parent checked off on the photo package order.

Dean grabbed the remote and switched the channel before the anchor could say a single word of the story, but Sam was grateful. The boy probably wasn't trafficked. Not all missing children were. Sometimes, they just went to the wrong place at the wrong time in the most innocuous of ways. Sometimes it was just a misunderstanding. Maybe his parents told him he could stay with a friend, but forgot and panicked when he didn't come home.

Still, Sam really didn't want the reminder. Not right now. Not when he could see his own face from a school picture in an article that Amy printed out.

"Really need to stop watching the news, huh?" Dean asked. "Way too depressing, right, Sam?"

Dean forced out a laugh, but Sam wasn't buying it. He supposed that he wasn't the only one affected by what happened to him.

Sometimes, he thought that it all hurt Dean more in the end.

* * *

Sam watched John pace across Bobby's living room while Dean helped Bobby in the garage. John was on the phone, trying to find an in with the traffickers so they could go ahead and put their plan into motion.

Sam felt like he spent his days just watching ever since they came to Bobby's. He was barely allowed to do anything and had to be constantly watched himself (babysat) so they could make sure he didn't run off and get into more trouble. Like that was his entire plan all along. Like that was the reason he ditched school in Austin and landed himself (and Amy) in a trap.

John had a pattern to his pacing, meticulous and never changing.

Step.

Step.

Step.

Turn on his heel.

Step.

Step.

Step.

Turn.

Over and over, until he finally hung up the phone and tossed it on the coffee table, taking a seat in the recliner. He dragged his hand down his face before he looked towards Sam.

"Sam," he said, "it's not too late to change your mind about being bait. I know I was hard on you at the hospital, but I was angry and I wasn't thinking straight. I just hate that you keep getting hurt and I can't stop it."

"I have to do it," Sam said. His throat tightened as he spoke, making his voice raspy and crack at random, but he forced the words out anyway.

He brought his fingers up to graze against the scarring on his neck. He knew that his collar was gone, only leaving a necklace of electrical burn scars, and he wouldn't get shocked for speaking, but his body still had a bit of trouble believing his mind's logic.

"Sam, you don't have to do anything," John said. "I don't think you should be putting yourself in the line of fire after everything that's happened lately."

Sam shrugged. He didn't think it was a great idea either, but at least he could be useful if they went through with it. He killed humans with his mind. He was a monster. Using a monster for bait seemed like the natural option.

"We're going to wait a few weeks longer, at the very least," John said. "You can claim you're ready all you want, and I know you're almost physically healed, but you still aren't alright."

Sam felt exhausted, even if his sleep was dreamless and deep. When he was forced to take pills every night, he never woke up feeling rested. It may have been necessary in his family's eyes, but he couldn't live the rest of his life relying on medication to get any sleep at all. They might not realize it, but the demon in his dreams couldn't do much more damage than he'd already done.

What could hurt him more than being shown the truth that broke him in the first place?

"You feel up to eating something?" John asked.

Sam shook his head, wrapping the blankets left on the couch around himself, like it would hide him from the world.

"Sam… you can't live on sleeping pills and fruit smoothies."

"I'm not hungry."

"Sam…"

"I can't," Sam said.

If he tried to eat, he'd throw it up before he made it past two bites. Even the smell left him nauseated and teleported him back to a room hidden within a club, kept healthy and docile for the pleasure of others. Reeking of incense, alcohol, and cheap cologne.

It made him glad that Dean didn't go to bars anymore and come back smelling like alcohol, cigarettes, and sour perfume. He wasn't sure that he'd be able to handle any flashbacks it could bring back.

"Sam, you have to try," John said. "You're going to waste away at this rate."

Sam burrowed himself deeper in his cloth cocoon, turning to face the back of the couch and letting his own back face the world. He thought of the poor excuse for a bed that he had at the factory, and he remembered having to lay on it for an entire day after he was whipped until his back was left in shreds.

The memories stayed at the edge of his mind, ready to throw him into flashbacks if given the chance. If given the tiny, tiny push they needed.

"We just want to help you," John said.

He knew that. He _knew_ that, but he didn't want to slip and make them see the monster they rescued. They'd realize they made a mistake and that the Sam they wanted died a long time ago. If the demon made anything clear, it was that.

He wasn't going to try to sleep, and even if he wanted to, Bobby's heavy footsteps rushing through the house would have woken him up.

"Bobby? What's going on?" John asked.

"Injured hunter on his way," Bobby said. "Sounds like he got his research wrong and paid a hefty price for it. Luckily, he was working with another hunter, otherwise that woulda been the end of him. Now, since you're staying here, make yourself useful and help me prepare to deal with some bad injuries."

Sam heard them moving from room to room, then he heard the backdoor open and close before Dean asked, "Whoa, Sammy okay?"

"Your brother's, well, this isn't for him," John said.

Sam rolled his eyes and huffed out a small breath. Of course, John couldn't answer if he was okay. No one thought he was okay, and he knew he wasn't. He just didn't like hearing it. He especially didn't like it being said like he wasn't there at all.

He felt Dean's eyes on him before he looked over and saw him hovering above him.

"Sammy? You awake?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded.

"You doing okay?"

He wanted to curl into the couch cushions and disappear. His only reprieve from his nightmarish memories came when he fell into a medicated sleep. He was not doing okay. He might never do okay again, so why did they always have to ask? Why did they have to make him admit to it?

He turned his head away from Dean as much as he could, waiting until Dean stopped hovering and took a seat on the recliner.

"Right, dumb question," Dean said. "Well, let me know if you need something, Sammy."

The sounds of movement in the house started to die down to simply feet tapping on the wooden floors in impatience. Sam felt like he should be aware, or involved, somehow, but he was too tired. Fighting his own mind and whatever his powers stemmed from was exhausting.

At the same time, he wasn't sure his body had the ability to fall asleep without drugs anymore. He couldn't be positive that it wasn't a forgotten function of his brain.

So, he stared at the back of the couch like his world had been narrowed down to just its worn fabric. No one made him get up and help get ready to treat a wounded hunter. No one expected anything of him anymore, other than being alive. Like breathing and having a beating heart were the greatest feats he could accomplish.

No one even moved him from the couch. No one mentioned moving him. The couch was where the injured were usually set, stairs too difficult to manage in most cases. Yet, they let Sam stay in his own little world on the couch instead.

* * *

For awhile, Sam thought that maybe no one was coming. Maybe the hunters changed their minds and went to the hospital. But then the doors burst open and the house was filled with the sounds of motion again.

Sam heard Dean get up, then sit on the floor with his back against the couch. It was the closest he had let Dean come since the demon made him simultaneously relive and spectate his memories of trafficking (because only one or the other wasn't enough for the demon, he guessed). This time, he didn't want to push Dean away. Having his brother so close made him feel safe instead of scared.

He rolled over to face the back of Dean's head instead of the back of the couch. He watched John and another hunter carry a man whose skin was more red than anything else into Bobby's kitchen and onto the table (covered with a few layers of bed sheets, but Sam had even less of an appetite than before).

Sam focused on Dean's head, the blood making him more uncomfortable than it should have. He'd never had a problem with exposure to blood before, every hunter became desensitized to it after their first few hunts gone wrong (or gone right, but at too big of a cost).

"They put a collar on me," Sam whispered, only loud enough for Dean to hear.

Dean looked over his shoulder at Sam, and waited in silence for him to continue.

"At first, it was set up so that they had to use a remote to shock me with it," Sam said. He coughed when his throat constricted at the mere memory. "Then, it was every time I tried to make a noise, but they still used the remote, too. They left it on until I passed out from the pain a couple times. I was just like a dog to them."

Dean was visibly shaking as he sat on the ground, swiping at his eyes before Sam could notice the tears pooling, but Sam saw anyway.

"Sammy…"

Dean sounded like he didn't know what to say after that, but Sam couldn't stop the words from pouring out now that they'd started.

"Some days, I still feel a really deep ache. Like, nerve deep, and I think it's because of that. And then I think, you know, what if it never goes away? What if there will always be days where it hurts just to be alive?"

"I can't wait to find Liu so we can finally kill him," Dean said.

Sam saw the strange hunter walk to the edge of the living room and look at them, his minor wounds taken care of and John and Bobby working to patch up the much more injured hunter.

Dean turned to look at the man, too. No longer shaking. Completely composed, like a switch had been flipped in his brain.

"What's wrong with the kid?" he asked, nodding at Sam.

Dean was on his feet and had the man shoved against the wall within seconds. Dean growled words at the man that Sam couldn't hear.

The man kept his hands up, trying to pacify an angry Dean, who looked to have no intention to calm down soon.

But he wasn't out of place in asking, Sam thought. He didn't know what was wrong with him, either.

He did know that telling Dean about the memory stuck in his head helped a little bit, like he could let it go and move on to the next memory.

It still hurt, but it felt like Dean took some of the pain just through listening. It was unpleasant voicing what happened, solidifying that it happened at all, but maybe that was what they both needed.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Sam is finally giving Dean a little bit to work with and trying to heal, but he's still set on being bait. I'm sure that can't go wrong.

As always, thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! I really appreciate the support, especially when life gets a little busy and finding time to write becomes difficult.

Leave a review before you go?


	12. Holding On

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Their names were James and Lewis, the hunters. The story went that they always seemed to meet on hunts without really planning to, and they couldn't count the number of times they saved each other's skin.

Lewis bled a lot, but dozens of stitches were enough to take care of that. A few days of bed rest, and he was on his feet again.

All the while, Sam stuck close to Dean's side like he did as a child in an unfamiliar place.

Dean didn't mind that, not at all. It was Sam's acceptance, his show of trust. While there were strangers in the house, he trusted Dean to keep him safe. And Dean would do whatever he needed to in order to prove to Sam that his trust was not misplaced.

Dean did, however, mind that James' question about what was wrong with Sam seemed to break something in him. Like he now felt desperate to show that nothing was wrong. Like he had to prove something to these strangers.

"It was just supposed to be a werewolf," Lewis said, sitting at the dinner table and shoveling as much food as possible into his mouth. "Not always the simplest hunts—the bastards are brutal—but manageable when you know what you're dealing with."

"Then, what was the problem?" John asked.

"Wasn't just a werewolf. It was a whole damn pack of them," Lewis said. "We got 'em, but they got me, too."

Dean listened to their story, but he paid more attention to Sam, who pushed his dinner around his plate and hadn't eaten a single bite of it.

"Not as bad as what I heard happened to your boy, though. Traffickers?" Lewis shook his head. "Damn, kid, I have to hand it to you for being able to go through that. I've heard the stories. A hunter's kid was taken years back, but no one ever found him."

Dean glared at his dad and Bobby. "I didn't know it was something that we were sharing," he said.

"Well, James asked why you freaked out and shoved him against a wall to growl threats at him," John said.

"Maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut," Dean said.

"Dean," John said, his voice low and warning.

"Dean, it's fine," Sam whispered from next to him.

"It's not fine, Sammy. He made it sound like something was wrong with you."

"Maybe something is," Sam said.

"You went through Hell, Sam," Dean said. "No one would be okay after that!"

"Shut up, Dean. I don't want to talk about it."

Lewis cleared his throat. "Sorry I brought it up," he said.

Sam shook his head, keeping his eyes focused completely on his plate. "It's fine," he said. "It's just… it's fine."

"Sammy…"

Sam pushed away from the table. "No, Dean," he said. "I'm going to my room. Talk about whatever you want."

Sam left his plate, not a single bite eaten, and went up the stairs. Dean barely heard him shut the bedroom door, it was done so softly.

Dean was about to follow after Sam, but Bobby caught his wrist, shook his head, and stopped him. "Just give him some time, Dean. Take him up something to eat later."

Despite every fiber of his being wanting to chase after Sam due to an irrational fear that he'd vanish out of thin air (again), Dean relented and slouched in his chair. He poked at what was left of his food, no longer having enough of an appetite to finish it.

"Really, I'm sorry," Lewis said. "I didn't mean to upset him."

Dean grunted.

John glared at Dean for a second. "I'm sure he knows you didn't mean to upset him. It's just a bit of a touchy subject. I'm sure you can understand why."

"Just let us know if there's anything we can do to help," James said. "I always think that the creatures we come across are the worst of the worst, but then humans find a way to surprise me."

"You find any traffickers while you're out on a hunt or whatever," Dean said, "you kill 'em. Spare some kids a lot of pain."

He didn't tag on 'like someone should have spared Sam'. He imagined that his dad and Bobby heard the unsaid words, and maybe James and Lewis did, too. If someone had been there to stop the traffickers before they could sell Sam, then Sam would be okay right now. He wouldn't be hiding from the world or skittering away from physical contact and barely opening up even to Dean about his experiences.

Sam might not have been the happiest kid before he was taken, but his teenage angst was about simple things, like having to move and leave a girl behind. It was never about being whipped or having a shock collar on him. Or being chained to a bed underneath some sleazy nightclub.

Dean never realized that it was possible to mourn someone who was still alive and in the very same building.

* * *

Dean sat on his bed, opposite of Sam's, and stared. Sam had his back towards him. In fact, Dean was fairly sure that Sam hadn't moved from his curled up position since he left the dinner table.

He refused the food that Dean heated and brought up earlier, long after dinner ended and everyone went their own ways (James and Lewis lounging in the living room. John and Bobby out in the garage. Dean in the bedroom he shared with Sam, trying to draw him out of the shell he receded into).

"Maybe we should try to get Dad to finally take us to the Grand Canyon," Dean said. "If anyone deserves a vacation, we do."

Sam stayed silent. Dean gave him his sleeping pills a little bit ago, but he knew that Sam was still awake. The pills weren't working as well as they used to, allowing Sam to slip into restless sleep instead of the blissful darkness they dutifully kept him in for months.

Dean ran a hand down his face. It felt like he never did enough to help Sam, but he didn't know what he was supposed to do in the first place. Should he give Sam a higher dose of sleeping pills so that he could get the rest, ignoring the fact that it was a bad sign if Sam was developing a dependence on them? Should he drag Sam to another doctor and get a professional opinion about it (even if that meant risking Sam being hospitalized once the doctor saw that the kid was skin and bones)?

He spent his life taking care of Sam, but now that he was stuck with decisions harder than any he made in the past, he felt a bit of resentment towards his dad. He should be making these decisions, not tossing them onto Dean's shoulders.

After everything, how the hell could he even trust Dean to make the right decision? What if he just kept doing things that made Sam worse?

Dean took a deep breath. His didn't know how to help Sam, but his thoughts weren't helping anyone.

He was a man of action, so he stood up and moved the end table from next to his bed. Then, he moved Sam's end table. Once the path was clear, he pushed his own bed across the room so that it was against Sam's. They'd been too old to fit on just one of the beds for a long time now, but that didn't mean that Dean couldn't fix it with a little bit of furniture rearranging.

And maybe Sam didn't want that comfort or closeness. He didn't so much as glance at what Dean was doing that made so much noise in the middle of the night as he moved everything.

That was fine. Dean settled himself on his bed anyway. If Sam wanted the comfort, it was there. If he didn't, well, it wasn't forced on him.

He remembered a time when something as simple as being near him was enough to take away Sam's worst nightmares.

He just had to hope that was one thing that hadn't changed.

With Sam's constant tossing and turning, Dean had a hard time falling asleep. He felt each movement now, since he pressed the beds together, but he wasn't about to regret it. Not until he knew whether or not it was helpful for Sam.

He managed to drift in and out of sleep, always woken up by shifting or murmuring from Sam. Then, he closed his eyes while it was still dark, and didn't open them until sunlight spilled through the thin curtains over the window.

His first thought was that Sam slipped away in the middle of the night, why else would Dean's sleep suddenly become uninterrupted for hours?

He turned his head towards Sam's bed, but found Sam curled against his side, sound asleep like he was five years old again. His brain caught up and registered Sam's presence.

He couldn't stop himself from grinning as he wrapped one arm around Sam. Finally— _finally—_ he did something right.

He didn't dare move more, not wanting to disturb Sam's first peaceful sleep in far too long. While his muscles begged to be stretched, and his head would feel so much better if he could roll onto his side, he ignored it all.

In the end, he felt that he might need the closeness more than Sam did.

* * *

Sam sat on the roof of one of the junkers that filled Bobby's yard. As long as he stayed within eyesight of someone, he could be alone for a little while. It wasn't perfect, and it wouldn't be enough for him to practice with the powers burning inside him, but it was something. A moment to clear his head.

But he felt his father's eyes on him from behind one of the house's windows, and it was hard to enjoy the moment of peace when the feeling of being watched brought him back to Massachusetts. When Dean was upset because he didn't mention that he couldn't shake the paranoia that a set of eyes were on him.

He didn't know where Dean was. He disappeared earlier that morning, after James and Lewis took their leave (which was a huge relief to Sam), but never said where he was going.

Sam leaned against the windshield he had brushed snow off of. Since the temperature was still so low, he doubted that it would be long before his dad came out to usher him back inside the house. So he spent his time hovering over Amy's number in his phone, wondering whether or not he should call. Wondering whether or not he should contact her after everything he dragged her into. After he was the reason that her leg was shattered in a car accident.

But he pressed call anyway. At the very least, he could apologize for all of it again. At most, he could talk to someone who really understood him in a way that his family couldn't. In a way that they would never be able to.

"Hello?" She picked up on the fourth ring, right before Sam lost his nerve and ended the call before it began.

"Hey, Amy," he said. "It's Sam."

"Sam? How are you doing?"

"I've been better," he said. "I keep trying to ignore it, but it's there. It's begging for my attention to the point that it hurts to not use my power."

"You're trying to deny who you are," she said. "You aren't human, Sam, but that's okay. I'm not either, and you of all people know that you aren't the only inhuman thing in the world. Did your family find out?"

"No, they didn't," Sam said.

He didn't think that he would be able to bear having them look at him like he was just another monster that needed to be put down. He wouldn't be able to handle his last memory being their faces contorted with hatred as he stared down the barrel of one of their guns. The thought was enough to set his heart racing and starve his lungs of oxygen that felt impossible to replenish.

"Sam? You okay?" she asked.

Sam cleared his throat, hoping that it would clear some of the lump forming in it. "Fine," he said. "Just… nothing. It was nothing."

"Sam," she said, "you can tell me."

"I know, but I can't right now. I can't say it."

"Well, you can call me anytime if you want to say it later," she said. "Or if you need anything at all."

"I know, Amy," he said. "Thank you. I'll call you again."

"Take care, Sam."

He hung up feeling a little bit better that he could share with Amy things that he couldn't share with his family, but it always felt like a small betrayal to talk with her. She was the hunt that escaped from his dad and brother, and he knew it. He knew it and refused to give her up because he didn't see the supernatural world as black and white as his family saw it. Amy deserved to live.

"Sam," John called, lingering by the side of the house. Always so careful to not come too close to Sam. "Time to come back inside. It's cold."

Sam slid off the junker's hood and followed his dad into the house. There was a mug of hot chocolate waiting for him, but it didn't taste as sweet. Not when he couldn't shake the thought of John with a gun pointed at him, Dean standing nearby, but not making a single effort to spare Sam.

* * *

He let the drone of TV numb him for awhile, at least until he heard the Impala's engine as Dean pulled back into the Salvage Yard from his mystery trip.

From the couch, he watched Dean come into the front door, his arms full of grocery bags. Then, he left the house and came back with more bags, dropping them on the counter and kitchen table.

Sam got up and poked through the bags, pulling out candy, chocolate syrup, and other sweets.

Dean came through the door again. "Hey, Sammy," he said.

Just like the rest of the bags, the last ones Dean brought in were filled with sweets. "Why did you get all of this?" Sam asked. It was becoming easier for him to find his words again, but in moments like that, it was even easier. It was all so trivial. There was no reason for him to shrink into himself and a shell of silence.

Sweets were rare treats when they were growing up, especially in the amount Dean bought that morning. He couldn't remember the last time he ate over half the stuff now scattered around Bobby's kitchen.

"You'll see," Dean said. "So, sit your ass down and wait."

Sam sat and watched Dean pull out bowls and fill them with ice cream before topping them with a little bit of everything else he bought.

He set a bowl in front of Sam and handed him a spoon before taking the opposite seat.

Scoops of strawberry and chocolate ice cream (no vanilla in sight). Chocolate syrup. Caramel drizzle. Chocolate chunks. Cookie pieces. Broken up peanut butter cups and half a dozen other candies. All of it smothered with whip cream and a cherry on top (multiple cherries).

"Are you trying to kill me with sugar?" Sam asked.

The image of his dad pointing a gun at him with Dean standing nearby, not defending him, came back to the front of his mind.

He stuffed a spoonful of his ice cream into his mouth, trying to keep his irrational fears (that might not be so irrational) buried.

Dean made him an ice cream sundae, and he wasn't pointing any guns at him.

His dad made him hot chocolate for when he came back in from the frigid outdoors. No guns. No threats.

"If anyone could use some extra sugar, it's you," Dean said. "You're skin and bones, man."

Sam shrugged. He ate his ice cream much slower than Dean, who shoveled it into his mouth, leaving chocolate smears on his face. Maybe he was skin and bones, but he didn't have much of an appetite anymore.

Still, he wasn't going to say anything. He wasn't going to protest about it and ruin a moment of kindness from Dean. He suspected that he wouldn't be able to hide his abilities from his family forever, so he was going to take the small moments with them. He was going to collect those memories for when the day came that he'd have to leave (in one way or another).

He ate huge spoonfuls, giving himself brain freeze to numb the thoughts his mind kept forming.

When Sam was half-finished with his ice cream (and Dean was on his second bowl), John came in, looked at them with a laugh, and joined them at the table after making his own bowl.

"Your mom had quite the sweet tooth," he said. "She would buy and hide candy bars around the house. Made her own little stashes all over. Always demanded that our dates be somewhere that served a variety of desserts."

Dean laughed a bit at that. Sam just smiled.

For the first time in a long time, it felt like they were a real family. It felt like the world wasn't being swallowed by the existence of creatures that weren't supposed to be more than mere stories and nightmares that could be woken up from.

He should've been happy, but Sam felt tears stinging behind his eyes. He didn't want this to end and leave him with only the memories of a month of his own Hell to drown in.

He needed to hold on to this. For the sake of his life and sanity, he needed this.

* * *

Sam flipped through the pages of one of the many renditions of King Arthur's story kept in Bobby's library. He used to love the nights that Dean would sit and read it to him when they were children.

While it held a great deal of nostalgia, the book and its memories felt like they belonged to a different Sam. A Sam with a different life. One who was normal. One who wasn't an outsider among his own family.

John, Bobby, and Dean (unwillingly) were working out the first details about selling Sam to get close to Liu. Sam was pushed to the side, a book shoved into his hands and told that he shouldn't have to deal with anything trafficker-related more than he needed to.

Dean dropped to the floor next to him. "Please rethink this, Sam," he said. "We can find Liu another way."

"I have to do this, Dean."

He flipped through more pages until he came to the picture of Sir Galahad, bathed in golden light and on a quest. Known as pure. One of the best.

"Sam, you don't have to do anything. You don't have to do _this_."

Sir Galahad might have been bathed in golden light, but Sam had been bathed in flames since he was an infant. He wasn't pure like Sir Galahad. He wasn't fit for any grand quests.

There was something dark inside him, something tainting him. When Dean read him stories of King Arthur and his knights, he longed to be like Sir Galahad. But even as a child, he knew it was impossible.

Even as a child, he unconsciously knew that he was a monster.

He pushed the book into Dean's hands. "I do have to," he said.

Dean looked between the picture and Sam. "Sir Galahad?"

Sam nodded. "This is my quest, Dean," he said. "I know… I know that I'm not pure like Sir Galahad, and I never can be, but he had his quest. I have mine."

"Sam, don't talk like that," Dean said. "I know that you went through some horrible shit, but that doesn't mean you aren't pure. That doesn't mean you have to make something like this your 'quest' or whatever."

Dean thought he meant pure in a different way. He was probably talking about the way that Sam shied away from physical contact (only recently allowing Dean to be close) because the touches left him nauseated. They made his skin crawl and feel coated in a slime that he couldn't wash off. For so long, he feared Dean's touch would cause the same reaction, but it didn't. He only felt the warmth and safety that he always associated with Dean.

But that wasn't the purity he meant. This was a question of the purity of his soul.

"Dean," he said. "Dean, you don't understand. You can't understand."

"Talk to me, Sammy," he said. "Make me understand. You gotta help me out here."

"I don't know if I can."

Dean put his hand on Sam's shoulder and squeezed. Sam knew that he would listen to anything he had to say, but this really was something that Dean could never understand.

So he stayed silent.

* * *

Dean didn't bother to move his bed back to its original spot, but Sam didn't mind. Maybe it was childish to want his big brother to be so close, but he felt that he deserved to be a little childish for now.

Dean took it all well—he moved the bed in the first place, after all. Even in the morning, he hadn't said a word about Sam having curled against him in the middle of the night like some child who was afraid of the dark.

And maybe Sam was afraid of the dark, but not in the same sense. There was a much more encompassing darkness to fear.

Sam settled, trying to stay on his own bed. He knew the pills weren't working like they used to, and Dean's presence had lured him into a sound sleep despite of that the night before.

He didn't want to rely on Dean that heavily. Even if Dean gave no indication that he minded.

In fact, Dean seemed to welcome Sam's presence, and Sam found himself wondering who was benefiting more from the connection. Still, he fell asleep determined to stay on his own side.

But when Sam woke up in the middle of the night, it was next to Dean again.

"Sorry," he mumbled, moving back to his own side.

"Don't apologize, Sammy," Dean said, his words slurring with sleep. "You always used to sleep better when you were next to someone as a kid. Especially after nightmares, and hell, you lived a nightmare for a month. But it's still not leaving you alone and I don't know what to do."

The remnants of sleep always loosened Dean's tongue more than usual. Odd middle of the night conversations were the only times that he would let Sam in. The only times that he would show Sam just how much their life affected him.

"Sorry," Sam said again. He had to give Dean something to work with (which is what Dean had been asking of him for so long).

"In the factory, they had blankets on the floor for us to sleep on," he said. He traced the numbers on his arm in the dark, hidden under an arm warmer he refused to remove. But he still had their location memorized. He still knew what they looked like in perfect detail. "Thin blankets. Each one had a pillow, but only if you used the term loosely. Those things were so flat, they had to be ten years old."

"How long were you at the factory?" Dean asked.

"I don't know. Not very long, but I was always in pain there," he said. It was all said in a whisper, like things that were meant to be secret. "My… brands were still… fresh. I got punished a lot by the task masters. They kicked me with steel toed boots. They left me outside, chained to the building for a night, and it was so cold. They whipped me… They just always wanted to find an excuse to hurt us."

Sam's voice became more choked the more he said until he was nearly sobbing with the memories. All the feelings that he couldn't process and let out then, he let out in the darkness. The humiliation of being subhuman, of being someone's property, bubbled over as he spoke.

"They didn't care," Sam said. "They wanted us to hurt."

Dean pulled and kept him close, repeating his own apologies. "I should have gotten you sooner," he said. "I never should have left you alone in that shitty motel. Sammy, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I wish I could have switched places with you. I wish that I could have taken all the pain away. I'm sorry."

Sam clung to Dean, and he felt so small again. He remembered being in the same position after hunts that went wrong and ended with injuries and hospital visits. He remembered spending nights crying into Dean's shirt and holding on just to remind himself that his family was still alive. That they were all still there and would make it through the night.

It was the darkness that shook his decisions and made him rethink his plan to offer himself up to traffickers for the sake of information about Liu.

If simply talking about his memories to Dean broke him this much, how much would throwing himself back into that world (even with the safety net of Bobby and his family) break him?

What the hell was he supposed to do?

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Sam is finally accepting comfort and opening up to Dean, but he still refuses to talk about his powers. And he is starting to second guess his own plan. Three of the scenes in this chapter were requested, so I hope that those who requested them enjoyed their fleshed out versions.

As always, thank you for the reviews, views, follows, and favorites!

Please, leave a review before you go and let me know what you think!


	13. Calm Before the Storm

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Minneapolis was only a few hours from Sioux Falls (three or four), but those hours felt a lot longer with Sam sitting in the passenger seat, looking out of the window at a landscape made up of white fields and dead trees and, altogether, hardly interesting.

Dean didn't want Sam brooding, not now. They were heading to prepare to deal with traffickers, so Sam being in deep thought couldn't mean anything good. His recent breakdown in the middle of the night wasn't easing Dean's nerves at all either. Since then, Sam shut himself off again, but he gave Dean a lot to contemplate beforehand.

All the while Sam was gone and Dean was miserable, at least he had shitty motel beds to sleep on. Sam had thin blankets on the ground, or was left outside, and he was always in pain.

The club couldn't have been much better, but Sam still didn't talk much about his time there. Dean wasn't sure whether or not he should be thankful for that fact. There were a lot of things that he could handle, but even he had his limits.

"Sammy?"

And how long ago was it that they were headed to help Caleb with a witch hunt with Sam in the passenger seat, upset over something that he never really told Dean about? How could something feel so similar and so different at the same time?

"What?"

"There something you want to talk about?" Dean asked.

"Not particularly."

Dean gripped the steering wheel tighter. It wasn't supposed to go like that. Sam always wanted to talk things through. Even if he didn't really want to talk about it, he always came to Dean eventually and spilled whatever it was that bothered him.

Dean thought that they'd been making some decent progress, but every time he took a step forwards, it wasn't long before Sam shoved him several steps back.

"You know if you _did_ want to talk…"

"Yeah."

Sam continued to stare out of the window, like the snow-covered landscape held all the answers he was looking for, and Dean drove on. He followed his father's truck through the empty roads on the way to Minneapolis, the place that he feared would break Sam again if he couldn't get Sam to change his mind about playing bait in the next two weeks.

He tapped on the steering wheel to the tune that he hummed, but he still didn't dare to turn on the radio. Sam had been underneath a club, and he didn't know how music would affect him. Honestly, it wasn't something that he wanted to test. One day it would come up, but Sam had enough to deal with before they reached the more trivial details, like music.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw how Sam fidgeted. He shifted like he was never comfortable. He tapped against his legs with his fingers, would fold and unfold his hands. It took fifteen minutes before it started driving Dean insane.

"Sammy?"

" _What_ , Dean?"

"You're squirming like a kid waiting in the principal's office, dude," Dean said.

"So?"

"Talk to me, Sammy," he said. "I can see you're going crazy over there, just let me help. You have before, right? Talking helped, right?"

Sam shrugged one shoulder, still more focused on the window than on Dean. "I don't know."

"What?"

"I don't _know_. I don't know why this is bothering me so much, okay?"

"Because you're going right back into a situation that's been haunting you for months," Dean said. "I'd be more concerned if that _wasn't_ freaking you out."

"That's just it, Dean. It's been months. I should have gotten over by now, but it feels like I'm only getting worse."

"What? Sam, that's fucking ridiculous. There are people who went through way less than you did, and they never just 'get over it'. People might deal with trauma for their entire lives, that's normal. You're doing fine. Hell, you're talking and walking. We'll get there."

"When, Dean?"

"I don't know," Dean said. "But you know what? It doesn't matter. I'm gonna be right here with you, even if it does take the rest of our lives."

Sam nodded, but Dean swore he saw the ghost of a smile before Sam turned away again.

* * *

John and Bobby went through the effort and expense of finding a clean motel in a relatively safe location, but it didn't help much.

At first, Sam watched Dean draw symbols on the motel room's walls with a stick of charcoal. He claimed it was to prevent any demonic visitors from coming after Sam. Bobby's house was protected. A random motel was not.

Now, he sat on the far bed, his head resting on his knees to block out everything else around him. Dean told him once about the days where he was completely unresponsive, but for the first time he felt himself shutting down into one of those bad days.

He was determined not to let it happen, but he wasn't sure how long he could fight his own mind. And wasn't that just the theme of his life now?

"Sammy?"

It was like being in two places at once. Dean called out his name, but he heard numbers.

18166.

18166.

"Sam?"

18166.

He was on a bed. Just another shitty motel room bed with stains whose origins he didn't want to know.

But he was sitting on the cold, hard ground. Left outside and chained to a building to punish him while making sure he didn't try to run away.

A hand on his shoulder shook him, and he nearly fell onto the floor.

He was on a bed, and Dean was hovering over him asking, "What the hell are you saying?"

"I'm not saying anything," he said.

"I could hear you mumbling under your breath, Sam. I'm not deaf."

"I didn't know I was saying anything."

"How can you—Sam? Oh shit," Dean said. He ran his hand down his face, forming wrinkles that he was far too young to have. "Sam, you here with me right now?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "But I can feel myself slipping away. I've never… It's not usually like this. I never felt it happening before."

"Okay, okay," Dean said. "Take some deep breaths, Sam. C'mon, just breathe with me."

Sam tried to pay attention to Dean. Tried to listen to him and follow what he said. But black spots formed in his vision, and what he could see was the motel room from Massachusetts. He saw himself in the bed, just like the demon showed him, as men broke in and took him away.

* * *

He blinked and found himself laying in the back of the Impala, Dean turned around in the front seat watching him.

"Hey, you back with me, Sammy?"

Sam nodded, the familiarity of the Impala driving away the horrors of his mind.

"What happened?"

"Motel room," Sam said. "But not that one."

"You thought you were back in the other motel? The nasty one?"

Sam nodded.

Dean turned to sit normally and stare out of the windshield, leaving Sam to stare at the back of his head.

"What are we supposed to do?" Dean asked. "Gotta sleep somewhere, but I'm not sure we could get an apartment or rent anything with this short of notice. And only for, what, two weeks?"

"I'll just sleep in the Impala."

"What?" Dean looked over his shoulder. "Sam, are you insane? It's freezing out, you can't sleep in the Impala."

"Then, I'll just fucking deal with the motel room," Sam said.

There was heat behind his words, but his stomach felt icy at the thought of returning to the motel room. Dean was there with him this time, but he still felt alone and vulnerable in the room. Especially when it kept teleporting his mind to the day of his abduction.

"We'll figure something out, Sam," Dean said. "It's not a big deal."

"You don't get it, Dean," Sam said. "I'm sick of being the reason that you guys have to walk on eggshells. I'm sick of being treated like I'm made of glass, which is worse because I'm not exactly proving that I won't break apart at the smallest things."

"Look, Sam, you don't have to feel bad about me or Dad doing something to try helping you out. Hell, it's the least we can do considering that we should have been there looking out for you," Dean said.

Dean told him that playing bait was a bad idea, and he suspected that he should have listened. They hadn't been in Minneapolis for an entire day, and he was already losing it. How much worse would things get when he was actually put in his role of being sold?

At least, he thought, his fear would be real when he was face to face with the traffickers. Liu's pets.

* * *

Dean tried to change the motel room as much as he could in ways that would help Sam realize it was different from the one his mind showed him, and Sam appreciated the effort. Really, he did. But effort only accounted for so much.

Their dad would be sleeping on the small, lumpy couch in the motel room instead of in the second room with Bobby. Just to make sure Sam never felt alone or threatened.

Although, he thought that it wouldn't matter as much now. He could burn the motel to the ground before anyone got their hands on him. If only he had tapped into the power earlier to avoid being trafficked at all.

Sam sat on the floor, finding that it helped him stay grounded a little more than sitting on the bed did. The room reeked of weird scented candles that Dean went out to buy. A couple of them had to be thrown out when they smelled a little too much like incense. It left them with a floral one, whatever the hell a tropical rain candle smelled like, a candle claiming to have the scent of clean laundry, and the classical scent of pine trees.

Sam's nose had never been more confused.

"That can't be comfortable, Sammy," Dean said.

Sam shrugged. "The carpet is cleaner than at most of the places we've stayed in our lives."

"Yeah, well, you're not sleeping on the floor."

"I will if I have to."

"You won't have to. We'll figure it out."

"Dean, we're a little old to be sharing a bed."

Dean sat next to him on the floor and shrugged. "If it gets you through the night peacefully, who the hell cares?"

"I can't rely on you forever to do something as simple as sleep," Sam said. "What about when we're both eighty? Are you still going to want to share a bed because your little brother is too broken to fucking function on his own?"

"Eighty? Hunters don't tend to make it that far, Sammy."

It's said with a smile and a hint of humor, but they both fall silent after it's said.

"I don't know how much longer I can stay in the hunter life," Sam said.

Hunting required too many life and death situations. If Sam had to choose between keeping his secret and saving his family, he'd save them. It was what came after that terrified him.

 _"Davies' task masters thought he was some sort of spirit," Liu said, his voice mocking. "I don't think he's a spirit, but I don't think he's human either. Burn some incense. Keep him sedated. If we can't stop the problem, we should be able to keep it contained."_

He heard Liu's voice saying that he isn't human. He didn't understand it at the time, not with his addled mind, but the words registered once the demon forced him to relive it all.

"Sam…"

"It was just never for me, Dean. You know that."

"We can talk to Dad about it—"

"No," Sam said, cutting him off. "I've taken so much from both of you, I'm not taking hunting away, too. Let's just… Let's just take care of Liu first."

"You gonna be able to handle seeing him again?" Dean asked.

 _He looked over and saw Liu standing against the door frame, but not making any move to enter Sam's room._

 _He crossed his arms and stared. Looking for something, but Sam didn't know what._

 _Sam knew only a handful of things with certainty at the moment. He was exhausted. He could create fire with his mind._

 _And he would watch Liu burn._

"I need to see him burn," Sam said.

* * *

The first week left Sam more than a little exhausted. He had to share a bed with Dean to have any hope of falling asleep, which also spared John from having to sleep on a couch far too small for him as he took the second bed in the room, but Dean still refused to give him a higher dose of sleeping pills (which were once again running too low for his comfort).

If he didn't take the pills, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from tracking down the demon in his dreams, or hoping that the demon would track him down. He had a lot of questions, and he knew that was the only way he'd be getting answers. If he was lucky, the demon would still be willing to help rebuild him. Make him stronger.

Sam sat on the edge of the motel bed, bouncing his leg up and down on the ball of his foot. Each day that passed meant they were one day closer to putting their plan into action. To putting Sam back into the role of being trafficked, regardless of whether it was just a trap.

And he wasn't the only one feeling the nervousness of it all.

Dean paced the length of the room, stuck on babysitting duty, as he always was. "They should have been back by now," he said.

"They probably just want to be thorough," Sam said. "There's a lot that could go wrong."

"Yeah, well, nothing's going to go wrong. You're gonna be fine, Sammy. We're all gonna be fine."

Sam shook his head. They weren't nervous for the same reasons, he thought.

Dean wanted John and Bobby to return from setting up traps at the planned meeting location. While it was still a week before the agreed upon date, there was no guarantee that the men working on behalf of Liu wouldn't go scope out the area for themselves.

Sam wanted it to be over already. Once they got Liu's location, he would never have to even pretend that he was being trafficked again.

"I know," Sam said. "I trust you guys."

Enough to keep him safe, but he didn't trust that they wouldn't want him dead if they knew what he could do. Maybe they would have willingly handed him over to traffickers. If they found out early enough, would they have saved him at all?

Dean stopped his pacing and looked at Sam. "How can you?" he asked. "We messed up so many times, how could you trust us at all?"

Sam gave Dean a small smile. "Well, you guys came after me. Halfway across the world, and you still managed to find me."

Dean clear his throat. "We'll always come after you, Sammy. Someone tries to get you, I'll be right there. Speed of light, man."

"That's impossible."

"What?"

"You, traveling at the speed of light. That's impossible. That would lead to all of the laws of physics crumbling apart."

Dean stared at him for a while, before he started laughing and stepped over to lightly punch Sam's shoulder. "Glad to see your inner nerd made it out of everything unharmed."

Sam laughed with him, glad to have a moment to focus on something else. Something so disconnected from the things that happened to him, they couldn't possibly bring back unpleasant memories.

It was nice to feel almost normal again.

"You know what I meant," Dean said. "I'm always gonna come after you when you need me. Doesn't matter how far away you go."

Sam nodded, the hiatus of normal broken. "There was a time when I was gone that I almost hoped you guys wouldn't find me."

"You wanted to _stay_ there? Let them treat you like you were nothing?" Dean asked. "Sam, what the fuck?"

"I didn't want to stay there, Dean. God, of course, I wanted to be free," Sam said. "But I didn't want you guys to see me like that. I didn't want you to see what they made me into."

Dean sat on the bed next to Sam. "You don't still think any of that, right? You aren't still worried about anything like that? 'Cause I promise, we aren't sorry for getting you out of there. Whatever happened to you, it wasn't your fault."

"Yeah, I know," Sam said. "I don't still feel like that anymore."

Dean watched him for long enough that Sam worried he would spot the lie, but Dean nodded and moved on.

And Sam let out a sigh of relief.

* * *

Another week passed too quickly, and Sam felt too exposed in just sweatpants and a t-shirt, but they needed him to look close to when he was taken the first time. Maybe he should have told them that he was allowed to stay in the pajamas he'd been captured in.

 _Sam felt the touch of phantom hands on his body, rough and violating. He shook his head and made his way to the bathroom, shutting the door to create a barrier between himself and Harold, but he still felt like there were eyes on him._

 _Even the shower curtain keeping him separated from the rest of the bathroom couldn't shake the feeling. The paranoia, and he wondered if he was starting to lose his mind there._

 _They gave him some shorts and a sleeveless shirt, confusing but making him infinitely glad that he wasn't a girl because he could only guess at what they received for clothing. He washed up and dressed, if only to avoid strangers forcibly doing the tasks for him._

 _He didn't have a mirror to look in, but now he was almost glad for that. He didn't want to see how he looked as their property, groomed and waiting to be sold._

But they at least gave him sweatpants instead of the shorts. Dean insisted on letting him keep his jacket on because it was so cold outside, but that argument didn't last long when Sam pointed out that he needed the numbers on his arms to be visible. The numbers he spent months desperately trying to hide from the world.

 _His feet on the tiled ground of the parlor felt like they were being cut by glass with how much debris littered the floor. He was shoved into another chair, a new chair, and restrained much tighter than at the silent auction. Even when he wasn't moving, the straps bit into his skin._

 _Once the tattoo artist starting filling the sensitive skin of his forearm—palm up—with ink, he understood why he was bound so tightly. He would be moving so much trying to escape the needles, that the tattoo would be completely ruined. He couldn't even make a sound in protest because of his collar._

 _The tattoo artist didn't even look at him, and he realized that he wasn't a person anymore. His humanity had been slowly drained from him since the second they grabbed him from his bed in the middle of the night until he was just an object sold for some quick cash._

 _By the time they returned to the motel, '18166' was tattooed on his forearm perpendicular to his wrist in neat print at the center of red, tender skin. His fate sealed._

"Sammy?" Dean had his hands on Sam's shoulders. "You holding up okay?"

Sam felt immense pressure on his chest that kept him from properly breathing. He wanted to laugh at Dean's question. He was _not_ holding up okay. He was very much so _not_ doing okay.

He knew that it wouldn't be easy to throw himself back into his personal hell, but he never thought it'd be this difficult either.

With a few slow, steady breaths to regain what little control he could, Sam nodded. "Just… just get it over with."

"Is it really necessary?" Dean asked.

"Dean," John said, "I know you don't want to, and I don't want you to either, but we have to. This has to be believable."

Dean sighed and motioned for Sam to turn around.

Sam knew that it was Dean tying rope around his wrists, even if he couldn't see Dean doing it. But his mind wanted to keep hurling horrors at him.

 _He tried to move his hands, but they were bound again. This time with rope instead of zip ties. Sam couldn't ask why, but he suspected that they might not just carry zip ties with them. Or that they hadn't expected resistance and didn't think they needed anything for binding. Rope could be bought at a lot of places, no questions asked, and Sam wasn't sure how long he was out from whatever Jerry injected into him._

 _"Better get used to obedience," Jerry said. "It's the foundation of your new role in life. Buyers don't give a damn about the things they buy. It does its job, great. If not, well, you won't be in for a good time. Or a long life. Best learn now and save everyone the trouble."_

 _All Sam could do was glare at Jerry. He tried to kick at him, only to find his ankles bound like his wrists. He could squirm all he wanted, but he wouldn't be accomplishing much of anything in this state._

 _The man Jerry called Rich came into the room with bags of fast food. Him and Jerry took the majority and gave a little bit to the other boy, but Sam was given nothing._

 _"Deprived yourself of a meal," Jerry said. "Could've just played along and earned yourself some food, but you go making things difficult for us and you make things difficult for yourself."_

 _"Don't you get it, kid?" Rich asked. "The only damn we give about you is the price we can sell you at. We sell you half dead, and that's not our problem. Whatever life you had before this is over. You're just another thing."_

 _Sam once again spent the night wishing the floor would just swallow him. They were able to turn him into an object so easily. They didn't see him as human, he was just another thing to them._

Dean whispered reassurances to him as he ushered him to the backseat of John's truck, but it was the voices of Jerry and Rich that Sam still heard. Those were the voices echoing through his head, reinforcing his new position in the world.

* * *

Dean hated everything from the moment he woke up that morning. He hated that they were setting up a trap that required using Sam as bait. No, not just using Sam as bait. They were throwing him back into the nightmares he continued to fight so hard to stay out of.

He sat with Sam in the back of the truck, trying to keep him calm and keep himself from freaking out and calling the whole thing off by blowing their cover far too early. But he remembered what it was like to have no idea where Sam was and to know that everything Sam went through was his fault because he didn't listen to John when told to leave a case alone. He didn't listen to his gut instincts when he felt watched, or to Sam admitting that he felt watched, too.

He couldn't handle a couple of days in a shitty motel room. Hell, he couldn't handle a couple of hours in that shitty motel room, and it was Sam who paid the price.

 _"Sam?" Dean asked. He gripped his cell phone like it was the only lifeline to his little brother, and in a way it was for the moment._

 _John woke up, and once he realized what Dean was talking about over the phone, he was preparing to leave without question and alerting Caleb._

 _"Sam!" Dean demanded. "C'mon, Sammy. Answer me."_

 _He heard the yells in the background, the cry of pain, but refused to believe that it came from Sam._

 _The line went dead and Dean was forced to hang up on his end. He followed his dad and Caleb into the truck._

 _"He's just outside of Pittsburgh," Dean said. The truck was in motion before he finished the words. "They're moving him again though, sounds like."_

 _John nodded. "We'll find them. Sammy gave us a lead we can work with."_

 _"Yeah," Dean agreed. "He did."_

 _As proud as he was of Sam's resourcefulness in circumstances against him, the pure panic in his voice had Dean worried. What had he experienced? What would he still experience by the time they reached him? Pittsburgh was over nine hours away, and that meant they were getting a nine hour headstart farther away with Sam in tow._

Dean shook away his thoughts and tightened the grip of his hand on Sam's shoulder. Sam, who was trembling in the seat beside him, eyes unfocused and darting around the truck's interior. Sam, who was struggling to keep himself simply toeing the line of hyperventilation without crossing it.

He refused to let anything happen to Sam this time. He'd gladly sell himself to Liu if it came to it. If it'd spare Sam.

When John pulled up to the meeting place, an old warehouse outside of the city, the silence among them was deafening and broken only by the sounds from Sam that were breaking Dean's heart.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I have a feeling the next chapter is one to look forward to, now that we're getting back into some action and back on Liu's trail. I actually got ahead and managed to post this chapter two days earlier than was originally planned. Yay!

As always, thank you to everyone for the reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! It would make my day if you took a moment to review this chapter.


	14. Secrets

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Sam shifted his weight from foot to foot. He felt his dad and Dean watching him from the shadows of the warehouse, but no amount of security could calm his nerves.

"Just hold on, Sam. It'll be over soon enough," Bobby said.

The hand on his shoulder was meant more for comfort than for restraining him. So different from the last time he was sold, but still too similar.

Sam nodded, not trusting his ability to speak at the moment. They'd been there for over an hour already (Sam freezing a little more each second in the unheated warehouse), arriving early to get into place before the traffickers came.

But every minute that passed put him a minute closer to facing people who wanted to put him back into a life that broke him.

It felt like another hour passed by the time Sam heard the rumble of old, rusted cars grow closer and doors open and slam closed.

The men who walked in looked like anyone from the street, completely ordinary aside from their corrupted, twisted souls.

And Sam felt his blood boiling in a way that might be a little more literal than he liked.

 _Sam stood beside the demon and watched Harold come through the door to his room in the abandoned hospital. He knew what came next, could feel himself silently planning and preparing in the past._

 _He kicked the side of Harold's knee, sending him to the ground, and took the meal tray. He beat Harold with the tray until he, himself was sent to the ground, his head rammed into the tiles. Even as a spectator, he felt each blow to the head and the pain brought him to his knees._

" _Where is that fight?" the demon asked. "You've felt how strong you are. You've felt your potential. Why are you letting it slip through your fingers?"_

Where _had_ his fight gone? What had he really done since being rescued from Liu? Hide away from the world. Get himself nearly trafficked again. Nearly get himself killed.

"I wanna see his number," said one of the men. "Make sure you ain't trying to pull one on us for some quick cash."

Sam felt Bobby's hands on his shoulders and he spun him around.

"By all means," Bobby said.

Sam heard a few footsteps, then felt hands grip and twist his arm. With all of his willpower, he avoided pulling away, even though the man touching him was unnecessary in the first place. His tattoo was clearly visible with the way his wrists were tied, they made sure of it.

Yet the man still decided he needed to put his hands on Sam, and Sam couldn't promise that he wouldn't throw up right there.

He tried to find Dean in the shadows of the warehouse, but his mind was shutting down and he couldn't remember the positions Dean and John said they'd be in.

"Yeah, those are the numbers Liu wants," the man said. He slid his hands so slowly up Sam's arms and lifted the sleeves of his t-shirt. "And the brands on his shoulders."

Sam gagged at the feeling, but he hadn't eaten anything that day (or the day before), so nothing came of it beyond painful dry heaving.

Weren't they supposed to be trying to subdue the traffickers by now so they could get information about Liu? The plan fell apart in Sam's head and he couldn't remember what was supposed to happen and when. All he knew was that he felt hands on him that didn't belong there (and stayed until he fell to his knees and continued his heaving, curling in on himself), and Dean should be helping him, but he wasn't. Why wasn't Dean there?

He heard yelling and a few gunshots, but they weren't enough to pull him from his knees.

The ropes around his wrists gave way, and Dean pulled him up from the ground, taking him to a corner where the old warehouse still held boxes left behind that offered a bit of cover.

"You're fine, Sammy," Dean said. "Just stay here, okay? We can take care of them."

Sam looked around the warehouse. Three people taking on nearly a dozen traffickers? Hunters or not, that didn't seem like a fair fight, even if they expected Liu would warn them to bring back-up.

Dean gave Sam a quick pat on his shoulder before he left to help John and Bobby. They were trying not to kill anyone, but Sam figured that they only needed one alive for information and John already held a knife in one hand as he fought. They just had to hope that at least the one left alive had the information they wanted.

Sam hated himself for it, but he trembled in the corner and watched instead of helping. People talked about facing their fears, but how many of them had been faced with their fears in a way like this? How many of them went through with it?

Dean didn't have enough limbs to deal with the number of traffickers trying to beat him down, and he would have a fair number of bruises by the time it was over, if not worse.

Every motion seemed to slow down once Sam caught sight of a trafficker sneaking up behind Dean, a long rod of scrap metal in his hands, left behind from the days that the warehouse was used and now rusted, but sturdy enough to do a fair bit of damage.

 _The boy in that room was not Sam. He was far too feral, aggressive the second someone came to close to him. The second that he felt an unwelcome touch. His eyes were dilated an impossible amount and he snarled at the sight of any human._

 _Even as an observer, Sam felt the heat pumping through his body—through his very soul—and he felt the energy that never seemed to dwindle from the tablet Liu gave him. The difference this time was that his mind was clear and he comprehended everything that went on._

" _Do you have any idea how many souls that passed through here are destined for Hell?" the demon asked._

" _All of them, I hope." He wanted every soul that dared to violate him to burn eternally. He wanted to hear their screams._

 _And some of them he did hear scream. They screamed because of him and the newfound power that burst from within him that night. The power that he couldn't shake the feeling of since that night._

" _Places like this, where the damned are lured, are so… magnificent. The sheer amount of sin that fills the air, I love it. The most depraved of humanity has set foot through that door to you, man and woman alike, and you gave them a taste of what awaits for them after death."_

 _Flames filled the room at irregular intervals, but their source was always Sam, who felt the heat, but never the burn. His own blood burned hotter than the flames could. They did no harm to him. They could do no harm to him._

" _It felt good, didn't it? To be so powerful. To have others fear you."_

" _Shut up," Sam said. He saw a monster in his own skin, but the kind of monster driven to protect itself from worse monsters._

 _Those who screamed were not human._

" _You wanted me here. You wanted me to show you," the demon said. "You wanted me to break you so you could be rebuilt stronger. Sammy, I'm simply granting you that wish."_

 _He watched his latest victim stumble back into the hallway, fire still licking at his skin, and collapse. His screams died down, and Sam was certain that he couldn't be alive with his body charred so badly. Where his skin wasn't burnt to a crisp, it was a deep, oozing red._

" _What happened to that power in you? I know it's still there, but where did your fight go?"_

 _Just like when he relived bashing Harold with a tray, the demon made him wonder again where_ did _his fight go?_

" _You've been laying around. Hiding from the world and letting others be your shield. Why haven't you taken control yet? What happened to you, Sammy?"_

" _It's Sam, and I chose not to be a monster."_

 _The demon laughed. "Being a monster isn't a choice. It's a reality."_

 _Sam witnessed the rest of his night of fire in silence._

The man with the metal rod was too close to Dean. He had his arms raised high and was about to swing it down on the back of Dean's head.

Sam yelled Dean's name and outstretched his arm towards him, drawing Dean's attention. The spark of fear for Dean's life ignited his pyrokinesis in full force, and the man with the rod crumpled to the ground, bathed in fire.

Dean looked at the man, then back at Sam, with wide eyes. They held all the emotions Sam expected to see when his secret came out. Fear. Confusion. Worry. All except hate, but he supposed that would come once what he did fully registered with Dean.

Dean's attention on him was short-lived. He turned back to avoid another trafficker trying to take advantage of his moment of distraction, but he kept glancing over his shoulder at Sam.

Now that his power had been unleashed for a second, it begged to be used more. It felt like its own entity, begging for a taste of human flesh. Begging to burn the sinners and begin their torment a little ahead of schedule.

And Sam gave in. Dean saw what he did, what did it matter if John and Bobby witnessed it now, too? At least he could help them one final time.

The screams started quickly and the scent of burning flesh filled the warehouse. From his corner, Sam wreaked havoc on the traffickers and the warehouse itself, entire walls soon catching fire. Collateral damage.

Blood dripped from his nose in a steady stream, and his head started to feel ready to collapse in on itself, but Sam helped as much as he could, evening the fight.

It didn't take long for the traffickers to realize the source of the commotion and start trying to get to Sam, but Dean always managed to put himself between them and Sam before they got the chance to get close.

By the end of it, three or four of them laid unconscious on the ground, the rest no longer alive. John and Bobby worked on tying their new captives' wrists and ankles with the extra rope they brought along, but Sam noticed the way they looked at him. He knew that they knew what he did. Fires didn't start spontaneously, not like that. They didn't target only one side of a fight.

Dean, on the other hand, did not help with the captives. He walked straight towards Sam, who, for one of the first times in his life, couldn't read the emotions in his brother's eyes.

All Sam could think was that this was the end. Dean was going to kill him, put him down like the monster he was. He thought he'd made peace with the idea a long time ago, but now he didn't want to die. He couldn't die yet. Liu was still alive and he had so many questions for the demon with yellow eyes who called him his favorite and haunted his dreams when he had the chance.

"Sam…"

Sam raised his arms up towards Dean and took a step back for every step that Dean took forward. "Stay back."

Dean held his own hands up in surrender, but still took one slow step after another. "I'm not gonna hurt you, Sammy. I just want to talk," he said.

Even his voice was so controlled and calm that Sam couldn't read any emotion or intention from it either.

"I'm serious, Dean. Stay back."

Sam's words didn't sound threatening, not even to his own ears. Not when his voice shook and cracked in the middle of his words.

"Sammy, please. I promise, I'm not gonna hurt you. I just want to talk to you."

Dean used the same voice he used to coax frightened victims to trust him, and Sam wondered if that was how Dean saw him now. Not that it made much sense. He was a victim back in Hong Kong and in Chengdu, but today he had been the monster.

Dean stepped too close, and Sam was pressed against the wall. So, he did the one thing he could do to keep Dean away.

He separated them with a line of raging fire across the floor of the warehouse, forcing Dean to take a few steps back.

Sam ran to the closest exit, hidden in a cover of fire and smoke and ignored Dean calling his name. The only piece of luck he had was that some of the traffickers left their cars on, expecting to make a quick getaway.

Sam hopped in the driver seat of one. He might not have a legal driver's license (and he certainly didn't look old enough to have one), but Dean and his dad had been teaching him to drive since he was twelve, just in case there was an emergency and they were both incapacitated. As long as he could get to Minneapolis without being pulled over, that was good enough for him.

He looked in the rear view mirror once to make sure that none of them had gotten out of the warehouse in time to follow him.

When it came to fight or flight with his family as the opposition, he was in full flight mode.

* * *

"Dean!" John yelled. "Get over here and help us!"

Dean was still looking for a way past the fires and to his little brother, but John's command had him walking over and helping to carry the living traffickers out of the warehouse before it burned to the ground.

"Dad, we have to go after Sam. I don't know where he went. We shouldn't be wasting time with these bastards."

John turned and glared at him. "Why the hell would you let Sam out of your sight?"

"It wasn't by choice! He set a freaking line of fire between us and made a break for it. We have to get back in the warehouse and find him."

"Dean," Bobby said. "That place is ready to fall apart from the damage done by the fire. It's filled with smoke, and quickly filling with flames. I know for a fact that Sam isn't dumb enough to stay in there. He's probably already made his escape."

Dean shook his head. "You're wrong. He wouldn't run away like that. Not from us. Not again."

John closed the back of the truck on the traffickers. "Well, I hate to break it to you, Dean, but it looks like he has."

"Then, we have to find him!"

John looked at him for a long moment with quiet calculation in his eyes. There was no warmth to be found in them, and with Sam as the object of concern, that scared him. "We'll deal with these fuckers first, then we'll look for Sam."

"What the hell, Dad?" Dean asked. "The last two times Sam went missing, you dropped everything to find him. Why is this time any different?"

John stayed silent.

Dean shook his head. "This is about what happened in the warehouse, isn't it? The fire?"

"What he did in that warehouse was not human," John said. "You can't tell me that doesn't scare you."

"Of course it does. It fucking terrifies me, but you know what? That was still _Sam_. Did you even realize that not one of us has a single burn, while some of the traffickers laying in there are extra crispy right now? Yeah, the fire thing is freaky, but Sam fucking saved our skins in there. He faced something that gave him nightmares, and he fought back because he saw that we needed him to."

"I told you we would look for him after we get the information about Liu," John said, carefully enunciating each word, like that was the reason Dean had difficulties understanding him.

But it was the intention that Dean didn't understand.

"Leave them tied up in the motel room, and we can deal with it once we find Sam."

"Dean…"

"I can't believe you, Dad. You won't take the time to go out and look for your own son."

When Sam was walking away from him, Dean saw fear in his eyes. Sam was afraid of him, and if he was afraid of him, he was probably more afraid of their dad. Maybe even a little afraid of Bobby. But Dean couldn't figure out why.

Didn't Sam know that Dean would never hurt him? Maybe their dad was being a bit of an ass at the moment, but he wouldn't hurt Sam either.

Would he?

"Once we get back to the motel and secure these sons of bitches, I'll go out and start searching for Sam," Bobby said. "Y'all don't need me around for the interrogation."

John's response was a curt nod, but Dean thanked Bobby. At least there was still someone other than him who thought Sam's safety was a priority.

He spent the car ride back to the motel staring out of the window (just like he'd seen Sam do so many times) and putting the pieces together in his mind. The charred room in Liu's nightclub. Davies' destroyed factory. The comments about Sam not being human and the fear he instilled in the workers. The newspaper clipping that had burnt edges only after Sam held it. Sam's bloody nose when Dean found him out in the woods behind Bobby's house, surrounded by scorched sticks that he never took a second to stop and wonder about. The fire in Pastor Jim's library that was put out shortly after he lit it, while only Sam was left alone in the room.

It all made too much sense now that he saw the truth. But it hurt to think that Sam had been struggling all alone with more than they could have guessed.

Recovering from a month of Hell was hard, but how much harder was a layer of supernatural making it for Sam?

Dean didn't know, but he did know that he needed to find Sam so he could prove to him that, freaky fire power or not, he was still his little brother.

* * *

John had the traffickers tied together on the floor of the motel, shoes and socks pulled from their feet. He sat in front of one of them, pliers in hand, slowly tearing another toenail away from his screaming victim.

"Please! Please, stop!" The man was close to sobbing.

"Tell me what you know about Liu," John said. "Tell me how to find him."

The man shook his head, so John shrugged and moved on to the next toenail. Methodical. Cruel. Efficient.

Dean sat on one of the beds. Bobby left on his own to start searching Minneapolis for Sam. The problem was that it'd been hours, and Sam knew how to disappear.

John didn't need him for interrogation, and he wasn't entirely sure about why he insisted that Dean stay back with him. He wasn't sure why he was so cold now when it came to Sam.

Well, he had an idea. It just wasn't one he wanted to dwell on. It wasn't one that he wanted to believe.

He didn't want to think that his father might see his own son as a monster.

Dean had plenty of questions himself, finding out his brother could start fires with his mind called for such, but none of them were about whether or not Sam was a monster.

Sam was Sam, and never anything else.

* * *

Sam ditched the trafficker's truck once he made it to the edge of Minneapolis. He didn't think his plan through, which left him wandering the streets in a t-shirt and sweatpants on a day with subzero temperatures and a killer headache from overexerting himself when it came to using his powers.

He made his way to the Greyhound bus station by asking for directions from strangers, all of whom slipped him some money after directing him through the next leg of his journey. They seemed to pity him (he probably looked pathetically under-dressed for the weather and his face had to still be a mess from his nose bleeding earlier), but Sam didn't blame them. He was pitying himself a fair amount as he walked, shivering and wondering how long it would take for him to get frostbite.

If he was lucky, the fire inside of him would at least prevent frostbite, but it couldn't ward off the cold completely.

He arrived at the station and slipped inside. He hoped that the money from kindhearted strangers would be enough to get him to his destination.

But first, he had to figure out what that destination was. He huddled in one of the corners and pulled out his cell phone, one of the few things he'd been allowed to have on him during their plan. Just in case things went really wrong, and he was beyond grateful that Dean insisted upon it.

He worried that his call would go to voicemail, but it didn't.

"Hello?"

"Amy," Sam said. "It's me, Sam. I need to get away from here."

"Sam? Are you okay? Where are you?"

"At a Greyhound station in Minneapolis. They found out. They know, and I can't stay here. I can't. I don't want them to kill me."

"Okay. Okay, Sam. Just calm down for a second. I'm in New York City now, do you think you could make it here?"

Sam took a few breaths, slowly calming himself. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

"Okay. Great, Sam. Make your way here, and you can stay with me as long as you need to, okay?"

"Okay."

"You're doing great, Sam. Call me when you get here, and try not to worry so much. We'll be freaks together, and freaks watch out for each other. No one will hurt you again, not even your family."

"Amy," Sam said. "Thank you. I… just, thank you."

"Don't worry about it, Sam. I really want to help you. I want you to get better. I'll see you soon, but please call me if you need me beforehand. Promise?"

"Yeah… Yeah, I promise."

Sam hung up. He never imagined that he'd be sitting in the corner of a bus station, trying not to freeze to death and having the only person he felt he could trust not be Dean.

But he knew it would happen eventually. Once his powers were revealed, he could never stay with a family of hunters. He'd have to stay with monsters.

He waited for his turn to buy a ticket, finally reaching the counter and laying out all the money he had. "I need to get to New York City," he said.

The lady behind the counter looked at his money, then back to him with a frown. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, but there isn't enough here."

"What?" Sam asked. "How-how much do I need?"

The woman's frown turned into an unsettling smirk. "You didn't let me finish, Sammy," she said. "There isn't enough here, but I'm willing to make an exception. Just for you."

She printed out a ticket, and Sam took it from her with shaking hands.

"How do you know my name?"

She blinked, but when her eyes opened again, they were a familiar, sickly yellow. "Because you're my favorite, Sam."

She threw her head back and billows of smoke poured from her mouth.

Sam looked behind him, but no one else in line seemed to be paying any attention to the supernatural display right before their eyes.

The woman stood and looked around her, confused. "Can I help you?" she asked Sam.

He shook his head and ran.

Nowhere felt safe anymore. He'd never seen the demon in person, and the taste of sulfur wouldn't leave his mouth now that he had.

He found a secluded part of the station and huddled in it while he waited for his bus. A demon following him and helping him run away. Running away from his own family in the first place. Being able to start fires with his mind.

Nothing made sense anymore. He just knew he had to get to Amy.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Yes, we've gone from loving, brotherly moments to Sam running away in unnecessary fear. An early chapter? Yeah, I get my wisdom teeth removed at the end of this week, so I wasn't sure if I'd get one posted afterwards. We'll see.

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! The support keeps me going.

Leave a review before you go?


	15. Hey There, Delilah

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural. I also don't own the song "Hey There, Delilah" by the Plain White T's, which is the origin of this chapter's title.

* * *

Bobby returned to the motel room late at night and, with a shake of his head, said, "He's gone."

Dean clenched his jaw until it hurt and he swore his teeth creaked. He'd held his phone with the same intense grip for hours before Bobby came back, in between every call that Sam never answered. He wondered if Sam would bother to listen to the voicemails he left. The ones where he demanded that Sam get his ass back to the motel, and the ones where he spewed out streams of assurances that he would never hurt Sam. That he would never let anyone else hurt Sam either.

He couldn't get the image of Sam backing away from him out of his head, hands held up in front of him to keep him away. The fear in Sam's wide eyes, with him as the cause. Well, it was something Dean would be happy to die without seeing again.

John had been busy with his own task, trying to get information out of the traffickers. Three of them snitched that the fourth was their leader (or as close to a leader that they had) and that he was personally sent by Liu. The two of them were buddy-buddy, for one reason or another. Maybe those three hoped that they would receive mercy for their help.

They were wrong.

Bobby carefully stepped around the last remaining, and currently unconscious, trafficker (John stayed nearby, keeping a close watch on him), and took a seat next to Dean on the farther motel bed. The bed that was supposed to be Sam's (and Dean's given Sam's new clingy behavior).

"Any luck here?" he asked.

Dean shook his head. "Been slow going. You can only make them scream so much before someone calls the cops, even in shitty motels."

He would admit that the motel they were in was nicer than most that they usually frequented, but it was still outside of town, fairly secluded, and reasonably old. The kind of place that was better than nothing, but never a first choice (except for the Winchesters, who were used to much worse places).

He glanced at where John waited for the trafficker to wake back up, a bandanna tied around the remaining the guy's head and stuffed into his mouth.

"What happened to the other ones?"

"They ratted out that guy as their leader, pretty much," Dean said. "I don't know if they thought that Dad would show them mercy, but he didn't. Unless you count putting them out of their misery a little faster as mercy."

"They don't deserve mercy," Bobby said. "Not after what they've done to innocent kids."

"I know," Dean said. "I really do, but Sam is out on his own somewhere. I don't care about information about Liu. If it means having Sam back, I'd be willing to give up this lead."

Bobby didn't say anything, but he brought one of his calloused hands to rest on Dean's shoulder.

Dean didn't shrug it off, not until the remaining trafficker woke up and John's full attention went to making him talk. To taking out his lighter and running its flame so slowly across the bottom of the poor bastard's exposed foot. He tried to scream, but the bandanna did its job in muffling his sounds. He tried to move his foot away, but John had an iron grip.

Dean stormed past, only stopping to grab his keys and jacket.

"What the hell are you doing, Dean?

"I'm going to find my brother," Dean said.

John stopped his makeshift interrogation, doing the best he could with what limited equipment he had at his disposal without drawing too much attention, and stood up straight. "I think it would be best for you to stay here, Dean."

Dean shook his head with a bitter laugh. "You know, I really don't get you, Dad. It's like you don't care that Sam is missing and it's freaking cold out. He's your son, Dad! The last two times he went missing, you were ready to kill me for not keeping track of him. Now, it's like you don't give a fuck about him anymore."

The subtle shift in John's expression made the already hard lines on his face turn that much harder. "You saw what he did in that warehouse, Dean."

"The freaky fire shit? Yeah, I did."

"You can't tell me that doesn't scare you," John said. "It wasn't natural."

"Of course, it scares me," Dean yelled, he kicked the closest kitchenette chair and the thump of it hitting the floor startled the tied-up trafficker. "And I know it's not natural, but you know what? I don't fucking care. That was still Sammy. It was still my brother, and it was still your son. If you can't see that, then I'll take him when I find him and we'll both be out of your hair."

Dean stormed out of the door and slammed it behind him, finding solace in the solitude of the Impala. He hit his palms against the steering wheel with a mutter of 'damn it' accompanying each thump before he put the keys into the ignition and set out on his search for Sam.

The tension in his muscles almost hurt, and the anger at his father mixed with his concern for Sam made it difficult to see the roads. He never thought that he would stand on the fence that separated his family, asked to choose a side. He'd always idolized his dad, despite the man's many mistakes.

But John didn't realize that, if it came to it, Dean would choose Sam over him time and time again.

* * *

Dean stumbled back into the room hours later, eyes bloodshot and clothes disheveled. The room itself reeked of blood and burning flesh, even over the stench of alcohol and cheap perfume clinging to Dean.

Any other evidence that the trafficker had been in the room was nonexistent.

"Bobby's taking care of the body," John said, sitting at the small table. "I wanted to wait for you to get back."

"Why do you care?" Dean asked, taking a seat. "You don't seem to give a shit that Sam's gone again, why would you care if I'm gone?"

John took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I thought about what you said, and you were right. Sam can do something unnatural, and that scares me. There are still a lot of answers that I need, but those can wait until we find him. I realize that now."

"'Bout goddamn time," Dean said, his words slurring.

"I know," John said. "But what he can do is supernatural. Before we take him anywhere having to do with Liu, there's someone else I need to take him to. Someone who should be able to give me those answers I need."

"He's your son."

"I know, Dean."

"If you even think about hurting him, you have to go through me first," Dean said. "I'll take him and leave, and I won't look back."

John had his hands folded on the table, and his knuckles turned white as his grip strengthened. "I know, Dean. I'll always do what I can to save him before anything else."

A moment of silence stretched between them, Dean too drunk to think deeper about the ominous ending of John's promise, before Dean asked, "Did you find out anything?"

John shrugged. "The guy knew a lot of drop off places for Liu's slaves, guess Liu trusted him for some special acquirements and deliveries through the years. He said that if we watched them and followed the trucks, we should find where he lives eventually. I guess some of them are taken right to his home."

Dean felt the burn of bile in the back of his throat as his alcohol threatened to come back up at the thought. "I'm glad Sammy wasn't taken to his home."

"I'm not sure where he he ended up was much better," John said. "And I thought we agreed that no one would be drinking because it sets off his flashbacks so badly."

"Not like he's here to smell it on me."

"Any idea of where he might have run off to?"

Dean shook his head. "No," he said. He cradled his head in his hands, eyelids feeling heavy and his eyes themselves hurting from exhaustion. "Why does he keep leaving me, Dad?"

Dean didn't notice his father moving until he felt arms around him. If he pressed his face into his father's shoulder and shed tears for his missing brother, he would just blame the alcohol.

* * *

Sam stole a hoodie from a stranger at one of the stops, a stranger whom he overheard would be switching buses at that station. Since Sam would be getting back on the same bus, the stranger would never see it on him, and it wasn't Sam's fault that the man left his sweatshirt draped over his seat, forgotten.

He didn't miss out on the fact that the stealing and lying was part of what he hated about the hunting lifestyle (not that he wasn't good at both), but a normal life wasn't an option for him anymore.

He reached New York City after a few days of riding on the bus with frequent stops at various stations, but he was thankful he made it there at all.

While he waited at the station, he dialed Amy's number.

"Sam?"

"Yeah, I'm in New York City now," he said. "At the Greyhound station. Near Times Square, I think?"

"Alright, I'm on my way to come get you. Just stay there for now."

"I will. Thanks, Amy."

He hung up and waited, ignoring the stares of other passengers at the stations. The only positive point was that most of his scarring was covered by the hoodie now, including his tattoo and brands. Those tended to make the staring worse.

The negative part was that he was still freezing, curled in on himself and trying not to shiver.

"Hey, kid. Need a place to go?"

He looked over at the man who took a seat beside him. An older man with specks of grey flecking his otherwise dark hair in a way that reminded him of his father. The biggest difference was that the lines on this stranger's face were laugh lines, not the ones that grow from a hard, pain-filled life like his father's.

"No," Sam said. He meant to sound certain and confident, the way Dean taught him to be around possibly dangerous people. But he merely sounded about as pathetic as he felt.

"You sure?"

"Yes."

The man scooted a little bit closer to Sam. "You need a ride to get to that place you're going to?"

"No. And yes, I'm sure."

"Relax, kid. I'm just trying to be friendly, and you look like you could use some cash," the man said. He moved his hand closer to Sam's leg, but Sam jerked away and stood up before it came in contact.

"Leave me the fuck alone," Sam said, his words a low growl in the back of his throat.

"I was just offering you a good time in exchange for some cash," the man yelled from behind him. "I know a street rat when I see one."

Sam ignored him and kept walking away, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the man didn't follow him. Regardless of his actions, the man didn't seem the type to forcibly pursue someone who denied him. He'd get in enough trouble if someone turned him in.

Now, Sam's shivers were not from the cold alone. They were from anger and fearful memories. A hint of shame, maybe. What was it about him that made people so desperate for a touch? Could they sense the monster he was? Did that make it okay to them?

Sam nearly ran into Amy, would have if she didn't grab his arm and pull him aside.

"Sam, something happen?"

He shook his head. "Just had to deal with a pervert. It's nothing."

"Sam…"

"Seriously, Amy. It's fine. I dealt with it."

Amy looked like she didn't believe him, but she dropped the topic, and for that, Sam was grateful. She was helping him enough, she shouldn't have to fight his battles for him, too.

"Let's get going, then," she said. "We'll have to take the subway. The walk to my place is a bit far, especially in the cold. And you definitely aren't dressed for the cold."

They ducked into the nearest subway station, and Amy bought a single-use Metrocard for Sam.

"I got a job," she said as she handed him the card, "at one of the hospitals. I'm part of the food service, but there's a morgue. Feeding off of the dead isn't ideal, but it's a way to survive."

Sam nodded. For a monster, Amy was one of the least monstrous creatures or humans that Sam had come across. It wasn't her choice to be thrown into a life that required her to feed on pituitary glands, but she did what she needed to in order to survive.

They stood waiting for the subway to arrive, and Sam couldn't help but wonder how many monsters his family killed through the years that were just trying to survive the only way they knew how.

Who were the real monsters?

* * *

The trip to Amy's place wasn't long when they took the subway, just a short walk away from the station once they got off at their stop. What Sam didn't expect was that it would be a house. One of the many tall houses, crammed together so tight that there was no point in having windows on the sides unless someone wanted to reach into the neighbor's house.

"It's almost like a boarding house," Amy said. "The woman who runs it is a kitsune, too. It took a long time to find her, we aren't exactly common, but she welcomes, well, monsters who need a place to stay. As long as they provide some pituitary glands for her to feed on. The humans have to pay for their rooms in full with cash. The rest of us have ways to make up for missing rent cash."

"Monsters as in not just kitsune?"

Amy led him to the second floor and into one of the tiny rooms that could maybe be called a studio apartment with a few additions, and a bathroom that was not shared with other tenants. "Yeah. Long as we don't cause her any headache, she doesn't care what we are. Benefits her. Benefits us."

"I never thought that I'd come across supernatural creatures actually living together."

"Hunters don't care about things like that. They just want to put all of us down like rabid dogs."

Sam didn't fail to notice the way Amy always said 'us'. He was one of them. He didn't know what he would be called or considered, but it wasn't human. He'd heard of psychics before, but never met one in person. With his knowledge of the supernatural, 'psychic' was probably the closest fit.

Amy tugged a blanket off of her bed and threw it at Sam before guiding him to sit on the couch that almost didn't fit in the room. Its cushions were flat and the fabric that covered them was worn so thin, it was nearly see-through. "So, your family found out."

Sam wrapped the blanket around himself and nodded. "Yeah. We had a plan, and it went wrong. I thought that the only way I could help them was by setting some of the attackers on fire. It was the only way to save Dean from taking a nasty blow to the head. And I did help them, but they saw that what I was doing wasn't exactly natural."

His flight to New York had been fueled by adrenaline, but now it was sinking in that he wouldn't see his family again. Dean's pleas for him to come back and his pleas for Dean to stay away would be the closest they got to saying goodbye.

"What did they do?" Amy asked, keeping her voice soft and gentle that reminded Sam of the way therapists talked to their patients in TV shows.

" _And how does that make you feel?"_

"They didn't do anything. I panicked and ran," Sam said. "Dean, though, he tried to get me to come back. Promised he wouldn't hurt me."

Amy nodded. He knew that was probably the last thing she expected to hear. She most likely thought he was on the run from hunters who used to be his family, but were now after his blood.

"When was the last time you slept, Sam?" she asked.

Sam shrugged. "Not since the night before I left. I don't think my body remembers how to sleep without pills."

He felt the exhaustion. During the trip, he tried sleeping more than once with his head against the window, or curled up in his seat as small as he could make himself.

"You should still try," she said. "I should have enough blankets to split between us. I hope the couch is okay, I don't think my bed is big enough to fit the both of us. Then, we'll figure out what we need to get tomorrow."

"The couch is fine," Sam said. "It's more than enough, really. So, thank you. For everything."

Amy smiled and helped him turn the couch into a makeshift bed with a spare pillow and some blankets.

Sam laid awake for a long time in the darkness, Amy's breathing having evened out as she fell into a deep sleep. It wasn't a quiet night. He heard the other tenants at the house moving around. Clatter and shouting from some of them.

From outside the house, he heard sirens at regularly irregular intervals.

 _Night was the hardest in that place, Sam learned. It wasn't because the building was haunted, in fact, he could've dealt with that just fine. It wasn't because of the darkness, he hadn't been afraid of the dark for years now. It wasn't because of anything in particular happening to him. It wasn't because of the chill that crept into the air with the sunset and the lack of warmth that the thin blankets lent._

 _It was the muffled cries that made it through the walls and into his room. The cries of the other children held there against their will, alone and afraid. Probably confused and uncertain about whether or not they'll ever see their families again._

 _Sam would be lying if he said he never shared some of those same thoughts._

He felt like he was just taken again, and slowly realizing that there was the possibility that he would be alone for the rest of his life, separated from his family. He tried to shake the memories away, but they refused to leave his mind.

He missed the steady rhythm of Dean's breathing when he slept. He missed the knowledge that his brother would be there if he needed him. He missed that Dean let him share a bed, even though he was fifteen and way too old for it, because it helped him sleep easier and he needed the comfort that came from the knowledge that someone cared so much about him.

He missed Dean.

* * *

Dean felt a little better in the morning. Physically, but only once his hangover dissipated. Otherwise, it was a pretty shitty day. Sam continued to ignore his calls, assuming that he still had his phone on him, and they really didn't have any other leads on where the hell he might be.

So, Dean did the few things he could: call Sam regularly and leave voicemails (both asking him to come back and promising that no one would hurt him) and wait in the motel room while John and Bobby patrolled the streets if, by some miracle, Sam returned of his own volition.

He called the hospitals (which gave him mixed feelings when they reported that they had no one matching Sam's description). Bobby suggested calling other hunters, but there were only a handful that he trusted would not react towards Sam in the same way that his own father initially had (and in a much more lethal manner seeing as Sam wasn't _their_ son or _their_ brother).

After about an hour of being left to his own devices, and with only daytime television to keep him company, he called Caleb.

"Dean! How're you doing? How's Sam doing?"

"That's why I called Caleb. Something happened and Sam ran off," Dean said. "Do you remember how you could track the city where Jerry made his most recent call? Do you think you could do that for Sam's phone?"

"You got it. Just give me the number," Caleb said. "As long as you get him back safe and eventually fill me in on what caused this mess in the first place."

"I will, man. I promise. We'll all get together at Jim's and have a feast, or something."

Caleb laughed, but it normally sounded a lot more boisterous and carefree than it did on the other line. "I'm going to get to tracking and call you back when I have some news."

"Thanks. I really owe you one, Caleb."

"Don't mention it. I'll be in touch."

Last time, Caleb could only get as accurate as the city, but a city was a lot more than they had to go on now.

Dean was back to playing the waiting game, which was the game he hated the most. Sam's previous experiences on his own left Dean to ponder too many scenarios, none of them good.

At this rate, he was going to lose his fucking mind before they found Sam again. For all the promises he made about keeping Sam safe, about regaining Sam's trust, he sure was doing a hell of a job going through with them.

* * *

 _Sam found himself sitting on the subway in one of the cars alone. While it stopped at its normal stops, no one ever got on the subway, which meant no one ever got off of it._

 _For being the city that never sleeps, New York felt awfully empty._

 _Sam watched the doors open and close, then the tunnel move by the windows. While the situation itself was confusing and wrong, it didn't worry him. All the wrongs things were natural. Everything was happening as exactly as it was supposed to._

 _After it feels like hours have passed (Sam had no way of knowing the time), a man stepped into the car at one of the stops and sat across from Sam._

 _His sharply cut grey suit didn't demand attention so much as respect, but underneath the matching grey hat, Sam saw the sickly glow of yellow eyes._

" _How are you enjoying the Big Apple, Sammy?" he asked. "It looks like you made it there in one piece."_

" _Have you been watching me?"_

" _Of course, I have." He leaned over, forearms resting on his knees. "You're my favorite."_

 _Sam watched carefully for the subway to stop again, for the subway to give him a way to escape, but it didn't. Before the demon stepped on, it stopped frequently. Now, it wasn't stopping at all._

" _You can't escape your own mind, Sam," he said. "It's so nice that you've stopped taking those damned pills that shut down your mind while you sleep."_

" _Get out."_

" _You'll warm up to the idea of company. I'm the closest you have to family, now," he said._

 _The man stood up and took the few steps required to cross the car, and laid his hand atop Sam's head. "You can go for now, but I'll be back. We have so much in common, you just don't realize it yet," he said. "But you will."_

 _The subway came to a stop. When the demon stepped off, everything faded._

Sam's eyes snapped open to greet the same darkness he fell asleep in. Amy still slept soundly, despite the racket that came from the other building's tenants and the city outside that really seemed to live up to the title of never sleeping.

Never sleeping was starting to feel like Sam's only option, too. The demon gave him more answers than he could have asked for back when he struggled to remember what happened after he arrived in Asia, but he was still a demon. He shouldn't be something that Sam trusted, but now Sam had more questions that only he could answer.

Such as, what the hell could they possibly have in common?

Sam took out his phone. He charged it at a couple of the stops, but could never bring himself to look at the dozens upon dozens of missed calls or listen to the voicemails, all left by Dean.

But in the middle of the night, in a strange town with a girl he barely knew asleep less than five feet away, he found the courage to open his phone and listen to the messages left for him. The most recent one played first, left only an hour or two ago.

"Sammy," Dean said, but it was Dean's voice and Sam almost broke down at the sound of it, no matter how tired he sounded. "Sammy, I don't know if you're even listening to these, but please come back. Dad's come to his senses. Bobby never cared about what you can do, and you know that I won't hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you. At least call me."

He hit save and moved to the next one.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean said. "I'm sorry that you ever got the impression that you had to be afraid of me for what you can do. I've said it before, but I don't care that you can start fires with your mind. You're still my little brother. Please, call me."

Two more voicemails, and silent tears streamed down Sam's face. It was hard to listen to Dean sounding so defeated because of him. It was hard to listen to Dean beg for anything so sincerely.

And he wanted more than anything to call Dean.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Separation is once again not doing any good for the Winchesters. They all are miserable in their own ways, and still stubborn. But poor Sam and Dean.

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! My wisdom teeth removal went well and midterms are coming up, but that means Spring break is coming, too! Good luck to any other students here prepping for midterms.

(I couldn't not use that song as the chapter title, not when some of the story is in New York City. For those who haven't heard it, "Hey there, Delilah, what's it like in New York City" is the first line of the song.)


	16. Breathe and Burn

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Supernatural. Also, I am not a medical professional. Inaccuracies should be expected, although I do my best to avoid them.

* * *

Sam didn't finish listening to the voicemails left by Dean (dozens upon dozens) until the light of the rising sun started to spill into the one tiny window of Amy's boarding room. By then, his eyes had long since dried up. He wasn't sure he could shed another tear, no matter how desperate Dean sounded in the little recordings left on his phone as he begged Sam to either come home or call him (or, preferably, both).

He heard the world as it continued to spin beyond the walls of the boarding house (a supernatural boarding house, what else was a part of the supernatural world that he never knew about before?). Car horns honked, and sirens blared regularly. People went about their lives uninterrupted and unaware of his emotional plague.

Even Amy, barely feet away from him in a cramped boarding room not meant to house more than one person, continued to sleep soundly, gently tossing and turning in her bed before settling back down.

The world moved on, but Sam's world was confined to a phone cradled in his hands.

* * *

Sleep didn't come easily for Dean, it never did when Sam was missing (which was becoming far too common of an occurrence). Especially not when Dean found the little orange bottle that held Sam's sleeping pills. He really didn't like the thought that anything, that any demons, could slip into Sam's dreams when he fell into an unmedicated sleep.

When his phone rang, he answered without stopping to look at the caller ID. "Sammy?" he asked.

"Sorry, Dean," Caleb said on the other line. "It's just me, but I might have a lead as to where you could find Sam."

"Great. Where?"

"His last call was made in New York City," Caleb said. "Looks like the kid made it all the way to the Big Apple."

"Can you tell when it was made?"

"Yesterday. Early afternoon."

"Can you tell who he called?"

He couldn't think of anyone Sam would call that they didn't know. He hated the idea that Sam was calling someone else for help in the first place. Help to escape his family. Escape _Dean_.

"Sorry, I can't. Still new to this tracking stuff, and the tracking stuff is pretty new itself."

Dean started tossing his stuff together to get on the road, never one to neatly pack his bag, and even less so now. "Thanks anyway, Caleb. You gave us a city to start with, which is more than we had five minutes ago."

"Just find Sam in one piece. I'll head over and help as soon as I finish up this hunt. I know you got Bobby there, but I'd feel better if I were there, too. Although if you find him in one piece before I can get there, I won't be terribly upset."

"Every extra set of eyes helps," Dean said. "I don't know how to repay you, for this time or the last."

How could he repay Caleb for being dragged across America, Hong Kong, and China without complaining (about helping, at least) and then still being there at Pastor Jim's? Or for holding off the security at Liu's club so they could get Sam out?

"Don't gotta repay me. Not for any of it," he said. "I'm glad to help. Now, get going."

Caleb hung up, and Dean followed.

He packed his own things first, then started packing his father's things, phone pressed between his cheek and shoulder as he waited for John to answer.

"What is it, Dean?"

"Caleb called. Sam's last phone call was made from New York City. Yesterday, early afternoon," Dean said.

"I'm on my way back, then. Start packing, we'll leave right away."

"Already on it, Dad."

New York City was a long drive away, and occupied by millions of people. But right now, Sam was among those millions. That was all Dean needed to know to make the trip and the search worthwhile.

* * *

 _Sam sat outside of the factory, chained to the wall. The air wasn't particularly cold, but it was cold enough to slowly seep into his bones as the hours wore on, and it left him shivering._

 _But the girl who spilled her dinner was warm and her belly full of bland rice porridge. Sam could handle a night of cold loneliness for that. He needed something to make his new life in Hong Kong worthwhile._

 _He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the city around him. People moved about without realizing what truly went on in their city, the horrors that people were forced into._

 _It was almost peaceful, until he heard footsteps approach him and stop._

" _Well, look at you, Sammy."_

 _Sam's eyes shot open to stare at Dean crouched in front of him. He opened his mouth to ask Dean how the hell he got to Hong Kong and then managed to find him at some random factory on top of that, but the second he tried to get the words out, his shock collar went off and silenced him._

 _A classic grin spread across Dean's face. Familiar, but completely out of place. Dean should be concerned and trying to help him, not grinning at his misery._

" _Guess they finally chained you up like the monster you are," he said. "I can't believe how many years I wasted taking care of you. Leaving you alone to go out for that drink is probably the best decision I've ever made."_

 _Sam wasn't sure what was worse: the emotional wounds Dean was making, or the fact that he was rendered silent while Dean cut him open with words. The precision of a surgeon with the ruthlessness of a butcher._

 _He remembered that Dean wasn't there while he was at the factory. Dean hadn't shown up until he was already in Liu's hands and hidden away in a sleazy nightclub. And when Dean had shown up, he poured out reassurances, not contempt._

 _He remembered Dean's pleading voicemails, that nothing would change Sam being his little brother. That he would stand between Sam and anything that tried to hurt him._

 _But now, he smelled the exhaust of factory and cars in the air. He felt the night's chill that caused tremors throughout his body. He felt the debris on the ground cut into his feet and legs, sharp rocks, glass, and garbage. He heard Dean's words clearly, and so clearly in_ Dean's _voice._

" _Don't worry," Dean said, standing up and stretching his arms over his head. "Soon enough, you'll be shipped away to that club and drugged out of your mind. You won't even be aware as you waste away for the rest of your short, sad life."_

 _Dean walked away without glancing back, while Sam struggled against the limited length of the chains keeping him attached to the building, unable to beg Dean to take him along, or at least stay with him so he wouldn't be alone._

Sam gasped awake, nearly falling off of the couch in his momentary panic.

"Whoa, Sam, you okay?" Amy asked.

Sam shook his head. "No, but it was just a bad dream, I guess."

"You wanna talk about it?"

He did, but not to Amy. "No. I'm fine."

Amy looked at him, and he knew that she didn't believe him, but he also knew that she wasn't about to push him.

"Okay," she said. "I have to go to work, though. There's some food, I got things you might like once I found out you were coming. But I don't really eat human food, so I'll leave you money in case it's all awful and you want to get something for yourself."

She tugged at her uniform a few times, trying to get it just right.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Sam said. He didn't have much of an appetite anyway, and he wasn't sure how ready he was to venture into a city filled with millions of people on his own.

"I'll let the owner know you're here," Amy said. "Sometimes, one of the humans will make a meal in the kitchen and share it, you might like that. There are a couple of other shared rooms, but most of the supernatural keep to themselves. That's why I got a cheap TV for myself instead of having to sit in a common room to see what's going on in the world."

"Thank you, Amy," Sam said. "For everything."

She nodded at him with a smile. "I told you before, I'm happy to help, Sam."

He watched Amy finish her morning routine (which included snagging a pituitary gland kept in a jar in her mini fridge), before she was out of the door with a quick goodbye and a promise to be back right after her shift.

Sam dug out his cell phone from where it ended up buried in the couch and turned it over and over in his hands. The aching need to call Dean—to hear his brother talk again—from before he fell asleep had dulled. There was still a lingering desire to call Dean and run back to the only safety he had ever known, but Dean's words in his dream bothered him.

He knew that it was just a dream, and Dean's voicemails stated that Dean felt the complete opposite of the dream version of him cooked up by Sam's subconsciousness, but the dream was too fresh.

He set his phone aside for now, opting to turn on the small TV in the corner. It felt like there was hardly any room left in Amy's little 'home'. She packed it as full as she could, and he wondered how she managed to fit the couch he was on among all of it.

He wondered how long he would be there.

* * *

Dean loved the purr of the Impala. The leather of her seats, the smell of home, and the million little memories she held.

Only his dad was behind the wheel this time, following Bobby on the roads, and Sam wasn't there at all. He still loved a lot about the Impala, but the suffocating emptiness she held that day was not among those things.

"On New Year's Eve," Dean said, "it was one of Sam's bad days. I snuck sleeping pills into his water and watched the New York City Rockin' New Year's party on TV while he slept. All those people in one place, celebrating and having a good time. When the ball dropped, I told Sam that I hoped to hell this next year would be better for him than the last."

"Dean…"

"It's only been a few months, but I'm already failing at that, too. I don't think this year is shaping up to be much better at all."

"There's still time for it to get better," John said.

"How?" Dean asked. "Sam ran away because he was terrified of his own family. You saw his face back there, didn't you?"

"Yeah, Dean. I saw it."

"How do we fix something like that?"

"Well," John said. "First we get him back. Then, I have a friend he should see. She might be able to help him out a bit. After that, well, we get there when we get there. We can figure the rest out later."

The lull in conversation was filled by the classic rock that poured from the radio. Dean watched the world outside pass by as they drove. Each mile behind them meant they were a mile closer to Sam.

It was hard to picture Sam in the place that hosted such a large New Year's party. Sam, who these days had a hard enough time being outside of the place they were calling home at any given moment.

But it was also the Sam who hid something as big as being able to create fires with his mind from his own family. Dean wasn't so sure he knew who Sam was anymore.

"Do you honestly believe that Sam is evil for being able to do what he can?" Dean asked. "Are you clumping him in with your philosophy that if it's supernatural, we kill it?"

It was a philosophy that Dean once shared, the belief that nothing good could exist in the world of the creatures that killed his mom. How could something good coexist with such evil?

Then, there was Sam. Supernatural abilities in the purest kid he ever knew. If Sam's abilities were supernatural (and how could they not be?), then he'd change his beliefs because Sam could never be evil. He just didn't have it in him. He was the kid that always wanted to take home strays and help little old ladies cross the street.

"I know that _Sam_ isn't evil," John said.

"And you're leaving something out. I thought we weren't gonna do that anymore."

John sighed and ran a hand through the stubble on his face that was quickly lengthening into a full beard. "I know that Sam isn't evil, but that doesn't mean he can't be influenced by something evil."

"The burnt dreamcatcher and sulfur?" Dean asked.

John nodded. "I think a demon is trying to sink its teeth into Sam. But without Sam here to tell us what the demon does when it visits his dreams, we don't know what exactly it wants with him. All I know is that demons rarely want something good."

"But you aren't going to hurt Sam, right?"

"Of course not, Dean," John said. "I just want to make sure that it _is_ still Sam, not that a demon has gotten its hands on him."

"Well, if it has, we get them off. No matter what, we do _not_ hurt him."

"I get it, Dean," John said, sounding much old than he really was. "Try calling him again. Do you have any idea who he might have called from New York?"

Dean started punching in Sam's number via muscle memory, having dialed it nearly one hundred times in the past few days. "I'll call him again, but I have no idea who he might have called. Who does he know that we don't know?"

When his call went to voicemail, Dean wasn't surprised. He simply left another message to the pile filling Sam's inbox. The pile of messages that left Dean wondering whether Sam bothered to listen to a single one.

* * *

Sam scooped up the money Amy left for him and stared at it in his palm. If this was a long term arrangement, he needed to find a job. He needed to get his own room, probably, at the boarding house or elsewhere. He wasn't about to burden Amy.

He pulled his hood over his head and left the boarding house. The freezing rain soaked his clothes quickly and left his skin icy, but it gave him an excuse to hide within his sweatshirt.

What if he had to wear a uniform? Would he be allowed to wear arm warmers and cover his tattoo? Would he be forced to display it to the world for the sake of making a handful of dollars per hour?

He ducked into a department store and made a beeline for the bathroom, where he locked himself in a stall and tried to calm his breathing. It felt like there was no longer enough oxygen in the air for his lungs. They were starved and deflating, shriveled up like raisins and no longer fit to support life from the very thought of his tattoo being uncovered so anyone could see it.

The outside world was too large, it swallowed him. There were too many people who stared at strangers. Too many people who stared at _him_.

He rolled up his sleeve to see his numbers. 18166. Could strangers on the street see it through the cloth of his sweatshirt? Did they know what he was forced to do? Could they see the brands on his shoulders, too? Did they know what it all meant?

The bathroom stall was too confining. He felt caged, like an animal. He brought his fingertips up to brush against the scarring on his neck. His collar wasn't back, was it?

He ran out of the stall and walked back to Amy's boarding room as quickly as he could without drawing more eyes than he already felt on him, like the entire world was watching him.

* * *

He had more new messages on his phone, and he knew they were from Dean, but he hadn't listened to them. He just stared at the number of missed calls.

His strange dream with Dean seemed far away, and he was able to separate real Dean and dream Dean's words much easier now. As the dream faded, the need to call Dean and hear his voice returned. His fingers hovered over Dean's name in his phone, just one button away.

As he held the phone, his eyes were drawn again to the numbers on his right arm. The numbers that ruined his life and kept reminding him of that fact every chance they got.

Wild anger took hold of him. Anger towards Jerry and Rich. Towards the men who snatched him from his bed in the middle of the night. Towards Davies, Liu, and even Williams (who hadn't bought him, but had wanted to buy him to be used as a fucking breeder). Towards himself. Towards his family (why hadn't they been there for him? Why did they leave him alone that night?).

He needed to get it off.

He needed to _get it off._

Fire enveloped his left hand, bright and hot in his self-hatred and disgust. He brought his hand down over his tattoo.

The immediate pain from layers of skin burning away stole his breath. The world around him went white and if he hadn't been on the couch, he was certain he would have fallen over, collapsed to the ground.

He twisted on the couch, holding his arms out to the side, burning hand still firmly pressed on the tattoo, and buried his face in the pillow Amy let him use last night. Hints of her shampoo still scented the pillowcase, but nothing was enough to comfort him or stop the screams from his self-inflicted torture.

But it had to be done. The numbers on his arm had to be removed, or they would haunt him forever. They would forever claw at his mind and memories until there was nothing left for them to claw at. Until he finally crumbled into dust.

The smell of his burning flesh was thick in the air, and he thought of Liu's clients who stumbled out of his room at the club, burning and clinging on to life for as long as they could. But he didn't stop. He couldn't tell how deep his burns were (too deep, probably), but he needed to make sure that damn tattoo would be gone forever from his arm.

By the time he took his hand away and the fire died down, and no remnant of the tattoo remained that he could see, tears ran down Sam's face and his throat hurt from screaming into the pillow.

He stared at the fresh wound on his arm. Hideous, but it didn't hurt anymore. The excruciating pain passed, and he barely felt anything at all. It looked leathery, almost, with an odd sheen in the light and charred around the edges with splotches of white throughout.

That wasn't good. He should be doing something about it.

He rest his arm on the back of the couch, careful not to touch the wound to anything, and grabbed his phone, glad that it was nearby. He should call somebody for help. That burn did not look good at all (though the lack of numbers looked amazing to Sam's eyes).

He chose Dean's number from his contacts. It was always Dean who was there for him first when he was hurt or upset, and he couldn't really figure out why he hadn't called Dean before.

"Sammy?"

Dean picked up on the first ring, and Sam smiled to himself.

"Sammy please tell me that's you," Dean said. "Please talk to me."

"Dean… good to hear you," Sam said. His voice sounded rougher than he would have liked, and the words scratched his throat, but Dean was on the other side.

 _Dean_ was on the other side, and he wasn't yelling or condemning Sam. He wasn't listing off Sam's faults or saying that all of the time he spent taking care of Sam was wasted.

Dean's laugh on the other side sounded strained and tense, forced almost. "God, you have no idea how good it is to hear you, Sam, but what happened? You don't sound okay."

"It's fine," Sam said. "It's just my arm."

"What about your arm, Sam? What's wrong with your arm?"

Sam heard his dad's voice in the background, but whatever he said, Dean didn't repeat it.

"I had to do it."

"Do what, Sam? Are you hurt? Do you need me to call an ambulance for you? 'Cause I will, just tell me where you are."

"I don't know," Sam said.

"Don't know what? Sam, do you not know if you're hurt, or do you not know where you are?" Dean asked.

Dean sounded panicked, but Sam wasn't sure there was much to worry about. He should see someone about his arm, but the pain was gone along with his tattoo.

"I had to do it, Dean. It's okay now."

"You're not making any sense, Sammy," Dean said. "You gotta tell me more, okay? What did you do?"

"What I had to," Sam said.

"Sam, if you're afraid of telling me where you are, you don't have to be. No one is going to hurt you. And if anyone wants to try, they have to get through me first. I promise. You have to believe me. You aren't a monster, you're Sam. You're my little brother, and I need you to tell me where you are."

Dean's words sounded completely reasonable, although his head was starting to spin. Still, he didn't have any idea where Amy lived. He didn't pay much attention to her address—there were other things on his mind.

"I don't know where I am," Sam said.

Dean took a deep breath on the other line. "Sammy, did someone hurt you?" he asked, enunciating each word and speaking slowly.

"It doesn't hurt."

"Are you injured in some way, even if it doesn't hurt?"

"My arm?"

"Yeah, you mentioned your arm. Look, Sam, as much as I hate to say it, you need to hang up and call an ambulance. It's the injuries that don't hurt that are usually the worst," Dean said. "Do you understand me, Sam?"

Sam hummed his response.

"No, Sam. God damn it. You need to get medical attention, Sam," Dean said. "I'd say that I don't care if it's a fucking paper cut and it doesn't hurt, but I'm pretty sure from the way you're acting that it's more than just a paper cut. Tell me that you are going to call an ambulance, and once you do, call me back immediately."

The door opened, and Sam's head rolled to the side to see Amy step through.

She smiled at him at first, but with a single glance at his arm, her mouth fell open and her eyes grew wide. "What the—Sam what happened?" she asked.

"Sammy, who is that?" Dean asked.

Amy rushed over and almost touched his burnt arm, but didn't dare to get too close. Sam watched her inspect the injury with a horrified expression, but he felt so distant that it didn't quite register that the source of horror was something he did.

His phone fell from his hand, but he still heard Dean's voice yelling from the other side.

Amy snatched the phone, ended the call, and dialed 911.

"Don't worry, Sam. I'm gonna get you help. You'll be fine," she said. Her words were confident, yet her voice was anything but.

It felt like he blinked his eyes, and the room was flooded by men and women in paramedic uniforms, carrying supplies and crowding around him. Words poured from their mouths in a flurry of sound, but none of it made sense. Only a few of the words made it through the fog of his mind.

Shock.

Third-degree.

Self-inflicted.

They had him in the back of an ambulance with a mask over his face and the type of rush in their movements that meant things were bad. But he caught sight of the hideous burn replacing the number tattoo on his arm and smiled as much as he could at that moment. The tattoo had been professionally done and the numbers stood neat and uniform, but they were a sign that someone else owned him.

He still had the brands on his shoulders, but he rode to the hospital with one less mark of objectification.

Anything was worth that.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** John is seeing reason again, but Sam is not exactly in a great mental state, Amy has a lot on her plate, and Dean knows that something is wrong with Sam, but he's too far away to do a thing about it. Everyone's having a great time.

Thank you so much to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! Your support makes it easier to push through writer's block and deliver almost consistent updates.

Leave a review before you go?


	17. Hospital Daze

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural. Also, I am not in any sort of medical field, so inaccuracies are bound to be present.

* * *

Dean squeezed his phone until it creaked. Then, he let it go, pushing down the urge to smash it or throw it out of the window. It was his only line to Sam.

"Dean, what the hell is going on?" John asked.

"Sam hurt his arm or something. He wasn't making much sense other than talking about his arm," Dean said. "Sounded like a girl found him, and she sounded pretty scared. Then, the call ended."

Any other day, Dean would've been proud of Sam for finding a girl to shack up with. But not when Sam was so obviously not okay and struggling to function. Not when Sam couldn't even take care of himself.

"Does Sam know a girl in New York City?" John asked. "We've never been there, how the hell would he have met her?"

Dean shook his head. "You know, I swear I've heard her voice before."

"Someone we've come across on a hunt or something? A victim, maybe?"

"No, I don't think so," Dean said. "We haven't been on a normal hunt in a while. This would be more recent like—that's it! That girl from Austin, Texas."

"The one who was taken with Sam?"

"Yeah, I think so. Amy, right?"

"Well, are you sure it's her, Dean?"

Dean tried to remember Amy's voice from the hospital in Austin and compare it against the voice he heard over the phone. His problem was that most girls' voices sounded the same to him anyway, but who else would Sam know?

"I mean, I think so," Dean said. "I can't really be sure, I only heard her in the background, but what other girl does Sam know? Or what other girl would remember him _and_ be willing to help him?"

"So, we find Amy," John said. "Sounds like she got Sam some help, so she tells us where he is and we take it from there."

"How are we supposed to find Amy? We don't know her last name, and there are millions of people in New York City alone. We're looking for a fucking speck of dust in a haystack."

This nightmare was giving Dean a headache. He wanted someone to blame, to yell at, but he wasn't sure who. There were so many at fault, himself included, that he wouldn't know where to begin sorting through it all.

"We'll figure it out, Dean. It'll be okay."

"How?" Dean asked. "How could any of this ever fucking be okay? Sam is in a different state, and he's hurting. He called me, and I couldn't do a damn thing to help him. Nothing about that is okay. That should _never_ happen."

"I don't know, but doing anything is better than doing nothing at all. Call the hospitals when we get closer. See if Sam was admitted to one."

John pushed the down on the gas, and the landscape passed faster. But it would never be fast enough for Dean.

He needed to be in New York yesterday.

* * *

He never felt like he could get enough fresh oxygen. That was what all air should be like, the threat of oxygen toxicity be damned. He didn't try to pull the mask from his face this time. He left the IVs in his one arm and the thick bandaging on his other arm.

There was no reason to fight any of it. He accomplished what he wanted to, and that was all that really mattered. Now, the doctors would take care of his damaged skin, but those numbers would never come back.

"Glad to see your eyes open."

Sam turned his head to look at Amy, taking up Dean's usual position in the seat beside his hospital bed. Her hair was a mess, like she slept and hadn't brushed it out yet, and her clothes were no neater. The circles under her eyes showed that she needed more rest than she was getting.

"They did what they could, but they had to surgically removed some of the burned skin," she said. "They want to transfer you to the psych ward once you're a little more stable. Physically."

"What?" Sam asked, his voice muffled by the oxygen mask.

"Unless you have a better way to explain that burn, they're assuming it's either self-inflicted or the result of abuse. They don't fully believe me when I tell them that no one else could have done it to you. And they have no idea how you could have done it to yourself, or why it's hand shaped. But you were hurt by either yourself or someone else, so you're going to be transferred to the psych ward."

"I just wanted to get the numbers off," he said, sounding pathetic to his own ears.

Amy sighed. "There are other ways to get a tattoo removed, Sam. This was extreme and reckless."

"I had to do it."

"Sam," Amy said, "maybe it isn't so bad that they're going to evaluate you. You need more help than I can offer. They won't let any visitors in to see you while you're under observation, so I'll say now that I hope it goes well. I honestly do."

Sam turned away from Amy. He was about to be locked away with a horde of doctors who thought they could help him, but couldn't start to understand the multitude of things slowly breaking him down.

"Why did you call an ambulance?" Sam asked. "Why did I get stuck here?"

"You needed help, Sam. I can't take care of a wound that bad. I'm not a doctor. I just… bring meals to hospital patients."

"Can they do that? Don't they need permission?"

"If you're a danger to yourself or someone else is a danger to you, and you don't have any sort of legal guardian, there's no way they're going to let you walk out of here."

Whatever the hospital had pumping into his veins started to pull him away from consciousness, but first he asked, "Can I be alone for now?"

"Yeah. Sure, Sam. A staff member might come in and keep an eye on you, but I'll leave."

"Thanks."

* * *

They made it to New York in record time, but it was still over fifteen hours of driving split among all of them, and trading places between all three of them and stopping for gas and food took more time than Dean liked. They checked into a cheap motel, not worrying about bringing up bad memories for Sam. He wasn't there to be traumatized by the motel room.

Dean had the phone book opened and set on the table in the kitchenette, one leg was shorter than the others and gave it a slight, annoying wobble.

"Shit, Dad, do you have any idea how many hospitals and medical centers are here?" he asked, crossing off the number of the most recent one, which had no information about Sam. Or at least, no more information than the numbers called before it. "Is Sam even in Manhattan? Or is he in Queens? The Bronx? Where the fuck is he, Dad?"

"Just keep calling, Dean," John said. "We'll get to the end of the list eventually, unless you have a better way to find a lead on Sam."

Dean took a few deep breaths. He would have rather been out in the city looking for leads in Bobby's place. At least that way, he would have felt a little more useful A little more in control, He wanted to break something. He wanted to kill something. The next time he saw Sam, he was handcuffing the kid to him. Sam was going to drive him insane at this rate. He was going to give Dean a heart attack and/or stroke within the year if this kept going on, and a full head of grey hair (granted any remained after all of the stress).

"What if he used a different name? What if he's already been treated and released?"

"Give his description and that he would have been admitted with an arm wound. Even if he's already been checked out, they should at least have records that he was there and treated," John said.

John called the next number in the phone book, while Dean called the one listed beneath it.

Both numbers were crossed off within minutes.

* * *

The back of Sam's bed was raised, it would let him watch the TV in the corner of a normal hospital room, but this room didn't have one. Since he was moved into the psych ward, he'd been bored out of his mind. He missed how his oxygen mask dulled the scent of antiseptic and medicine, but that was better than the smell of burning flesh from the other ward. How many burn victims could there be at one point in time? How had they all been burnt?

While his burn wound wasn't pretty, he was deemed stable enough physically to be moved into a ward for the mentally unstable. Everyone watched him like a hawk, and the kid sharing his room laid so still in his bed that Sam couldn't be sure he was still alive. Why couldn't they have deemed Sam as a danger to others so he could be locked in his own room at least?

The doctors still wanted him to give them his legal guardian to contact. They wanted to know about the rest of his old injuries and the brands on his shoulders and if he was being abused because they could and would help him, but he just shook his head. He really wasn't ready to face his family, and he wasn't about to put them through an interrogation about whether or not they were abusing him either.

It seemed like all he could do was prove that he was no longer capable of taking care of himself. He wasn't mentally competent enough to make important decisions, but burning off his tattoo continued to feel like the best decision he made in a long time.

If he was having issues moving his fingers or feeling them, well, that was just collateral damage. Besides, he was on painkillers and healing. They could still regain feeling and mobility.

A doctor knocked a few times on the door before entering without waiting for a response from either boy. His white coat looked pristine against the backdrop of soft blue paint on the walls, and he flashed a smile at Sam that made the lines on his aging face more prominent.

"Hello, Sam," he said.

He came over and stood beside the bed, but he didn't make any move to sit in the chair there. The doctors never did. They asked their questions, and then they left. Quick and clinical.

Sam stayed silent and cradled his injured arm close to his body, a gesture which likely didn't help him when he claimed that no one was abusing him. Protecting it from someone who wanted to help him, but lately those who helped were monsters and demons.

"I'm glad to see you awake and looking more alert," he said. "I'm not sure if you remember meeting me earlier, but my name is Dr. Parker, and I'll be part of the team taking care of you while you're in this ward."

Sam didn't remember meeting him earlier. Whatever they had been giving him through those IVs must have been good.

"I'd like to ask you some questions."

Unlike in the burn ward, this doctor sat down. He leaned forward and ignored the clipboard on his lap. Sam knew enough about body language from hunting and talking to victims. Lean in close. Feign interest in their words beyond the information. Pretend the emotions they felt mattered, too. Coat their words with a veneer of compassion.

A genuine interest in helping many did not always equate to helping every individual one-by-one. The greater good. The big picture. All that junk.

He didn't know what Dr. Parker's big picture or greater good was. For hunting, it just meant killing the thing that was killing people. If it was dead, then more humans would get to live without danger lurking closer than they could ever guess. What did it mean for doctors? Being able to add another tally mark to the count of patients successfully discharged?

Dr. Parker cleared his throat when it became obvious that Sam wouldn't respond. "Sam, how are you feeling today?"

He shrugged.

The doctor frowned, but replaced it with a half smile. "Yeah, that's a pretty common response around here. How does your arm feel?"

"Numb," Sam said.

The doctor nodded and scribbled something on his clipboard. "Someone will be in later to check on how it's doing."

When Dr. Parker took off his glasses, folded them, and stuck them in his coat pocket, Sam knew he wouldn't like the next set of questions.

"How did you get that burn, Sam?"

Sam shrugged again. "I did it."

"Sam, how could you do it to yourself? The police investigated, and they couldn't find anything you could have used to cause that burn. If someone hurt you, you can tell me. I want to help you, but you have to let me."

How many times did Dean try that ever since they got back from China? Telling Sam that he could only help if he let him. This doctor wasn't Dean, what chance did he have?

"I just did," Sam said.

"Sam… I need you to be honest with me."

Sam rolled his eyes. Screw the doctor and his attempts to 'find the truth' and 'help Sam'. If they wouldn't believe the truth that he burned himself, then they would never be able to help him, no matter how many misplaced good intentions they had.

If this kept up, he wouldn't be the only one with burns in the room.

No. No, no. He couldn't think that way. The doctor was an average human, and he wasn't like the humans Sam hurt before. He was a man honestly trying to help other humans. He didn't deserve to die.

What the hell was wrong with him?

"What's going on in that head of yours, Sam?" the doctor asked. "Let's start there."

"I was just thinking about this dream I had," Sam said, any lie being better than the truth.

Dr. Parker sat up straighter and readied his pen over his clipboard. His glasses found their way back to his face. "That's good, Sam. Why don't you tell me about this dream?"

"A crow pecked out my eyes and ate them," Sam said. "And then, instead of helping me, the doctors put me to sleep and harvested my organs to sell on the black market."

The doctor sighed. "Sam, I need you to be honest with me. We can't make any progress if you won't tell me the truth."

"Even when I tell you the truth, you don't believe me," Sam said. "What's the point?"

He never talked back to a doctor this much before, but it was oddly liberating and he was overly annoyed. He felt lighter without the numbers on his arm. He was away from his family in a strange city, and he had no reason to try and get himself checked out.

Did he hate being in the psych ward, or the hospital in general? Very much so. However, he couldn't tell them the truth, and they obviously weren't interested in listening to the bits of truth he could tell them.

They wanted the tragic story of an abused and broken boy, but he wasn't their story. They wanted to save a boy from his own family, not from himself or from people half the world away.

"Sam, there is no possible way that you could have burned yourself that badly with nothing within your reach capable of burning anything at all. Not to mention the fact that the burn is shaped like a hand, the multitude of old injuries found, _and_ the brands on your shoulders."

Sam shrugged, and the doctor stood with a sigh. He looked at Sam like his star student who just earned his first 'F'. "I really do want to help you, Sam," he said before he left.

After the doctor left, Sam realized that was the most he had ever spoken with someone who worked at a hospital directly. It was usually Dean or his dad that dealt with the staff, and always with the intention of getting him released as soon as possible.

His family shielded him from more than just injury, but now he was on his own.

* * *

It was John who called the right hospital in the end. Dean could tell by the extra questions and the shift in his posture.

He hung up his own call and listened.

"What the hell do you mean you can't give us more information over the phone?" John demanded. "He is my _son_."

Pause.

"Yes, I'm on my way there."

John hung up and turned to Dean. "On your feet, son," he said. "We're going to the hospital."

Dean followed his father into the Impala, settling into the passenger seat without argument.

"Call Bobby while we're on our way and tell him he can stop searching, we found him."

The call with Bobby was quick. Dean gave him the address for the hospital, and Bobby promised that he was on his way there.

"Why send Bobby scouring through the city?" Dean asked, despite having wanted to switch jobs with Bobby earlier in his fit of frustration. "There was no way he would have found any useful information. There are too many people here for Sam to stick out."

"I know it was a long shot, but Sam had to have gotten here somehow. I asked Bobby to check around at every station for transportation that he could find on the off chance that an employee might have come across him," John said, cursing under his breath when he was halted by another red light.

"Hey, Dad," Dean said, "did the hospital tell you anything about Sammy?"

It was a question that he wanted to ask since the moment John ended the phone call, but it was also a question he was terrified to hear the answer to.

"Sorry, son. They wouldn't give me more than that he had been admitted," John said. "Actually, they were very adamant about not giving me any more information than that. Sometimes, I really hate that privacy protection shit for medical records."

"So, what? Are we gonna go in there and bust him out?"

"That's the plan."

"What if he's seriously hurt?" Dean asked. "I mean, he sounded really out of it on the phone. What if he needs the medical attention?"

"Then, we take him to a different hospital in a different city and check him in with a different name," John said. "Dean, you know the drill. How many times have we done it by now?"

"Yeah, well, it's just hard to tell if we're on the same page these days," Dean said.

Dean had his eyes focused on the road ahead and the stoplights that insisted on hindering their trip to the hospital at every intersection by turning red, but Dean heard John's world weary sigh.

"I thought we were going to put that aside until after we found Sam," John said.

It was like the fight had been drained out of John. He wasn't arguing with Dean, even though he would have torn Dean's head off before all of this happened for being so insolent. For being so much like Sam used to be. Stubborn and independent, trying to do what he thought was right, regardless of their father's opinion on the matter.

It was all killing John on the inside just as much as it was killing Dean. How he didn't realize it before, he didn't know. Maybe it was the fact that John's emotional range when things were normal was limited to a pretty narrow scope of determined to angry, without room for much else.

Dean had been so focused on his own pain and trying to put Sam back together, he forgot that John returned from China with two broken sons along with the guilt that came with it.

"We've already found him," Dean said.

"Dean, you know what I mean. We'll deal with this later."

"Yeah, I know," Dean said.

He turned to look at his father, seeing him more as a mortal man than an untouchable idol than he had in a long time.

* * *

When they got to the hospital, John stormed in demanding to see Sam, and Dean felt sorry for the receptionist who didn't deserve having so much anger directed towards her. On the other hand, Dean felt just as anxious as his father to see Sam again. They both had a lot to make up for, they both needed to show Sam that he could trust them, no matter what freaky mind powers he had.

Dean just hoped that John would show Sam that he still accepted him as his son.

Instead of being given answers, they were ushered into an empty office and left alone. Bobby was shown in shortly after they were, about as confused as they were about the lack of information they were getting.

Dean's guts were tying themselves into knots. Why would they be taken to an office instead of even a waiting room? Why the hell wouldn't anyone explain to them what was going on? Was Sam okay?

It felt like an hour passed before an officer stepped into the room, in full uniform with a hard expression that bordered contempt.

"Gentlemen," he greeted, taking a seat on the other side of the plain, lonely desk. "I understand you're here for a patient named Sam."

"That's right," John said. "He's my son."

Dean was more than happy to let his dad take the lead on this one. He just wanted to make sure his little brother was okay.

"The staff has been trying to get contact information for a parent or guardian from him. Even a last name would have helped out, but the kid refuses to answer any questions," the officer said. "We have reason to believe that he's being abused. Unless you can disprove the belief that you might be causing harm to your son, we can't provide any information to you about his condition."

This had to be a nightmare. Dean couldn't think of any other explanation.

* * *

The boy in the opposite bed was visited by Dr. Parker later in the day. He didn't say anything, but he did roll over and prove to Sam that he was still alive.

Before Dr. Parker left the room again, he shot Sam a very pointed look, the meaning behind it clear. If he wanted to change his mind and talk, that would be the time.

Sam stayed silent.

A nurse changed the thick bandages on his arm and commented that it looked like everything was healing well.

The smiling faces and false sympathies drove him more insane than the lack of any entertainment did. A silent room and catatonic roommate couldn't judge him like the eyes of the nurses and doctors that were always watching him. Like the people who thought they knew his story, but couldn't even begin to understand it.

He was given three meals per day, never with more utensils than a plastic spoon. He always expected to see Amy walk through the door with the meal cart, but he realized that he didn't know which hospital in New York she worked at. The longer he was there, the more it sunk in just where, exactly, he was.

No sharp objects. The bathroom didn't even have a mirror. There was a common room with a TV and some other entertainment, but there were always people watching the patients. People who had to make sure nobody hurt themselves or someone else.

At night, he was given a mild sedative and more painkillers. One day down, and he was ready to go insane.

At least he was already in the right place for being insane.

* * *

Dean sat on the edge of the motel bed, head held in his hands. He never thought that it would be gas station receipts proving that none of them had been in the same state as Sam when he was hurt that got them out of being suspected abusers.

And being cleared from abuse accusations wasn't enough to get them in to see Sam, but it was enough to get them a little more information, after John explained Sam's history with human trafficking being the source of his older injuries.

Sam was under observation on the hospital's psych ward, which meant no visitors for the time being. No exceptions. Sam was exactly where Dean promised he wouldn't end up. He'd been there for over a day now. The hospital called John to give updates on Sam, but they still refused to allow him visitors. They wouldn't be able to go through with their plan to bust him out, not as long as he was on a secured ward.

He couldn't seem to keep his promises these days.

"We'll see him soon enough," Bobby said. "They can't keep him under observation forever."

John left to get their dinner. Bobby stayed to watch over Dean.

"It sounded like he was saying that he hurt himself over the phone, Bobby. He kept saying he had to do it. He gave himself a fucking third-degree burn that required surgery, and they thought he was being abused. They have him locked away."

"I know, Dean," Bobby said. "But Sam has been proving to us for months just how tough he is. He'll get through this, too. And you'll be on the other side to help him out."

"People can only handle so much, no matter how tough they are, Bobby. The world keeps slinging shit at Sam, and I just keep thinking, you know, what if this is the thing that finally breaks him? What if this is the thing that I won't be able to fix?"

"Then, you do what you can," Bobby said, "and you hope it's enough."

"I'm not sure how much hope I have left."

Bobby's hand fell onto his shoulder. "I still believe in you, son. For what it's worth."

* * *

Another day passed in the hospital. Sam went into the common room for a little bit. Since everyone stared at each other, or tried not to stare at anything at all (consciously or not), he didn't feel singled out.

It was like being with Amy. When everyone was a freak, no one was.

Dr. Parker tried to get him to talk again, promising that the sooner he talked, the sooner he could have visitors. He said he didn't want any visitors. The sooner he talked, the sooner he could get help and leave, but if he was in the hospital, he wasn't burdening Amy. He would just be burdening the doctors and nurses.

His burn was checked again, and declared to be on the path of continued healing.

Another night came, and the sedative was just enough to take away any dreams, while not plunging him into an inescapable darkness like the heavy painkillers they gave him in the burn ward. This was more peaceful. One of the small reliefs he received as a patient.

He drifted off into a lighter sleep, but was awoken when he felt a hand holding his uninjured arm still and a quick prick. His eyes opened sluggishly to see one of the nurses hovering over him with a serpentine smile and a dangerous gleam in her eyes.

"What did you give me?" Sam asked, not liking the way his words slurred.

"Don't worry, I gave you some of the good stuff, sugar," she said. "All you have to do is close your eyes again, and go to sleep."

Despite the warm tone of her voice, an icy pit of fear took the place of Sam's internal organs. Going to sleep was the worst thing he could do, but he couldn't fight whatever it was she injected.

His eyes fell shut, and this time the darkness was suffocating and cold.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Yeah, Sam really can't win. And Dean can't either. Once again, I'm sorry for any medical/hospital inaccuracies. I don't work in the field, and I'm lucky enough to have never been a hospital patient, but the medical sections really aren't the focus of this story either. There are bigger concerns like Liu and Yellow Eyes and whatever that nurse is up to.

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! Your support makes writing worthwhile.

Leave a review before you go?


	18. Test Subject

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural. I'm also in no way, shape, or form part of the medical field. Inaccuracies will happen, I'm sorry!

* * *

 _When he managed to fall asleep, Dean dreamed of fire. Sulfur scented flames ate away at the walls of a building he never remembered even setting foot in. If he glanced at the ceiling, he swore he saw his mother through the veil of smoke, eyes empty and open with her mouth set in a silent scream._

 _As much as he tried, he couldn't find a trace of Sam or his father. His mother died so long ago, he came to terms the best he could with her death over the years. Sam or John? Yeah, their deaths wouldn't be as easy to deal with (especially not Sam's)._

 _He needed to save them from the fire in order to save himself from shattering._

 _The floor beneath him gave way as the foundation continued to weaken. Dean struggled to keep his footing and step on chunks of the floor that didn't seem too far gone yet. His lungs ached, filled with more smoke than air, and he wondered how long he could last before his body gave out._

 _This was Sam's world. The fire. This was Sam's world, and he was a stranger stumbling through it. He didn't understand it, and it was going to consume him because of his ignorance._

" _Sammy!" he yelled, his voice barely a whisper and rough from smoke inhalation. "Sam, where are you?"_

 _This was Sam's world, but it didn't have to be. If Dean could find him, if Dean could even catch a glimpse of him, then he could pull him out of here. They could both make it out alive if they hurried._

 _He made his way to the first floor, eyes stinging and steps increasingly unsteady. The place was coming down around him, burning debris grazed him as it fell._

 _Was Sam even there somewhere? Was his dad there, or had he been left alone in a strange place to die?_

 _He heard cracks from above him. When he looked up, he saw a chunk of burning wood bigger than he was falling directly down at him._

 _All he could do was watch._

He woke to a hand shaking his shoulder and tumbled out of bed, thin motel blankets clamping themselves around his ankles like bear traps. Nightmares came with the job, they were familiar territory, but that one felt different. He still felt the heat of the flames licking at his skin. He breathed in stale motel air with large gasps, but he still tasted sulfur and smoke.

"Shit, Dean, you okay?" his dad asked, hovering over him.

Even Bobby stared at him from the opposite bed, sleep still clinging to him after the abrupt wakening.

Dean picked himself up off of the floor. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just a bad dream."

"Must've been one helluva dream," Bobby said. "I was sound asleep, boy. Normally takes the damn end of the world to wake me up from that."

"Sorry."

"Not something you can control," Bobby said.

"Was it about Sam?" John asked.

"Actually, no," Dean said. He looked at the clock, bright red numbers displaying 3:30AM. "Why did you wake me up? Did something happen?"

"You had a nightmare, so I woke you up," John said. "That's what happened."

"Nothing new about Sam?"

"No, which is good," John said. "They'd only call me at this hour if something bad happened."

"How long is it gonna be until they let us see him?" Dean asked.

"I wish I knew."

John's phone rang. When he looked at the screen, Dean had a sinking feeling from the look on his dad's face that it _was_ the hospital calling.

"Hello?"

Dean barely heard the faint sounds of another voice on the other line, spewing words that he couldn't make out from so far away. So he used the shifts in his dad's expressions to get a feeling for just how bad the news had to be to warrant a 3:30AM call.

"What do you mean?" John asked, the low tone of his voice leaving Dean on edge and anxious to know what was happening. "Who could have done that? I was told that he was on a secured ward."

"How the hell could you let that happen? There has to be security footage or something."

"All of them? Every single camera just conveniently stopped working? You wouldn't let me in to see him because you claimed you were keeping him safe, well you've done a fucking great job of that, haven't you?"

John ended the phone call and threw his phone onto the cushions of the couch. Dean felt the anger rolling off of him in waves, so strong it was tangible.

He felt all of four years old again when he asked, "Dad, what's wrong? What happened?"

A glance over his shoulder at Bobby told him that he wasn't the only one dying from curiosity. Bobby looked paler than most of the ghosts they faced, and Dean figured his pallor might not be much better.

"Somehow, the hospital fucking lost Sam," John said. "The night shift nurse was doing her rounds, and when she got to Sam's room, Sam wasn't there. How convenient is it that all of the security cameras just stopped working before that happened?"

"Well, do they have any clues about who might have been there? Who could have done it?" Dean asked.

It wasn't fair if they didn't get any leads. Sam couldn't keep falling off the face of the earth on them. That wasn't _fair_.

"So far, they have one nurse, a neurologist, and a security guard unaccounted for. They're still going through the employees on duty tonight and trying to find out what happened."

"What if they work for Liu?" Dean asked. "Oh god, what if he got his hands on Sammy again? He can't go through that, Dad. Last time almost broke him. This time will for sure. What the hell are we supposed to do?"

"I say we start by hunting down those missing employees," Bobby said. "Obviously, trying to get Sam in secrecy while keeping their own identities a secret wasn't at the top of their list. Best get our asses to the hospital."

"I'll call Caleb on the way there," Dean said. "Let him know that the extra set of hands will be appreciated when he gets the chance to get over here."

* * *

Sam's eyes opened enough for him to see the prismatic world around him.

"The MRI doesn't show anything unusual," a man's voice said.

"Well, we're being paid to find out what _is_ unusual about the kid."

He knew that voice. It was that nurse from before, the one who told him to just go to sleep.

"C'mon," the nurse said. "We have to get him out of here before anyone realizes he's gone. We can do the other tests once we get there."

"There's nothing special about this kid," the man said. "Liu's finally lost his mind."

"Well, he hasn't lost his money, and he's paying both of us enough to live out the rest of our days comfortably."

 _Liu._ Of course, he would find Sam in New York. Of course, he would have lackeys there who were just watching for him and other potential victims.

He would never be able to escape this living hell until Liu was rotting in an unmarked grave courtesy of him and his family. Even then, the memories would remain with him.

He tried to move, even the ability to move one fucking finger would be better than the paralysis he felt. His eyes grew heavy, the energy he had diminishing quickly.

He knew he was moving, but beyond that, everything was murky.

The only clear thought he had was one question echoing through his mind: why the hell had he run from Dean?

* * *

When he woke up again, some of the fog in his head had lifted. He felt nauseated, but hoped that nothing would come of it, not as long as he was unable to do much more than turn his head from side to side. He didn't exactly like the idea of having vomit so close.

Wherever he was, he was pretty sure it was no longer the hospital. Hospitals had distinct smells, and he had never been in one that smelled as much like sewage as this place did. Hell, the smell itself might be the source of his nausea, or it might be the thing that pushed his nausea over the edge and made him sick.

He stared straight up at the ceiling, made of stone with drips of water falling in their own rhythm from various points. Some sections looked off color, like there was mold, moss, or vines of some sort growing there.

Pressure high on his left arm made him look to see the nurse with a blood pressure cuff wrapped around his arm and a stethoscope's resonator pressed into the crook of his elbow right beneath it.

She glanced over at him. "You're awake."

The stethoscope was set to the side and blood pressure cuff was removed.

"You can make this real easy on both of us, sugar," she said. "My boss thinks you have some kind of super powers, and he is paying me a hefty sum to find out why. So, how do you do what you do, kid?"

His tongue felt three sizes larger than it should be, and he suspected that it might be made out of cotton balls. All that came out of his mouth when he tried speaking was a pathetic croak.

The nurse frowned. "I guess you could use some water first."

He was raised to more of a sitting position and a cup was brought to his lips. While he was pretty sure it was water and that Liu wouldn't go through so much effort just to have him killed, he pursed his lips shut.

He left his family behind in Minnesota. He didn't know if the hospital would notify Amy that he was missing (wherever he was, it definitely wasn't the hospital anymore). Even if they did notify her, he didn't know if she would want to go through the effort of trying to find him. He'd only been a burden to her, a source of trouble who just kept taking from her and was unable to give anything back.

Out of everything, dehydration ranked fairly low on his list of concerns. His options were to die or figure out a way to escape, no way he was letting Liu ship him away again. Maybe if the drugs left his body, he'd be able to use his pyrokinesis to get out. For now, he could feel the power lingering in him, he just couldn't reach it.

She scowled as the water ran over his lips, down his chin, and onto his shirt. With her free hand, she gripped his chin and pried his mouth open.

He didn't have the strength to fight her grip, flashbacks of the times his mouth was forced open against his will did not help him in his battle. When she poured water in, he tried to spit it out. Instead, he half choked on the small amount that got through.

"You have to drink more than that, god damn it," she said. "Do you think I injected too much? Shit, look at how glazed his eyes still are."

"Julia, you realize we're beyond screwed, right?" a man's voice asked. The same one Sam heard during his brief moment of consciousness earlier. "We can't go back to work after this. We probably won't be able to show our faces in this city again."

"Then, do your job and figure out what gives the kid his super powers, Brendan," the nurse, Julia, said. "After, we can hand him over to Liu, collect our money, hop ship to Argentina, get plastic surgery face changes and new identities, and live comfortably until we're eighty-two years old and we choke on fucking empanadas."

Brendan sighed and stepped into Sam's field of vision. He was young and wore a doctor's coat, probably fresh out of college. He slid his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"First, I don't think demanding that he tell you is going to work," he said. "Second, just start with taking blood samples and let him sleep off the rest of it. Maybe he'll be easier to reason with when he has a clear head."

Julia grumbled, but left. When she came back, she started filling small vials with Sam's blood.

He didn't even feel the needle prick him, and fell back into unconsciousness before she finished.

* * *

"This can't be happening," Dean said. "This can _not_ be happening."

Hunting was what they did, and what they were pretty good at, so it was natural for them to be back into familiar territory. Looking for clues. Breaking into places. Finding the big bad and killing them. Saving the victims. That was what Dean lived for. That was the life he was born into and embraced.

Only the victim was Sam this time, and Dean should have been with him. He should have been safe at the hospital. It was hard enough on a normal day to get Sam to go to the hospital, but now Dean suspected it would be near impossible.

And he was in the hospital in the first place. Generally, people in the hospital were there for a reason. They were there because they needed help.

"What if Sam's injury isn't healed yet? What if he still needs medical attention?" Dean asked.

"Then, we hurry up and find him faster," John said.

The one thing Dean was grateful for was that Sam going missing brought back out the father in John, the one who would do anything to make sure his sons were safe. For now, Sam's powers were forgotten.

Dean ran his hands through his hair, ready to pull out every single strand. The easy part was finding the names of the hospital staff members and, from there, their addresses. But now, they were in Julia's apartment, the nurse who was supposed to be working the night shift on the psych ward with another nurse.

Julia didn't have much in her apartment. It was clean, almost obsessively so, and if Dean didn't know any better, he would say it was like no one lived there at all. Barely any personal possessions or decorations. They tore up the entire place, but found nothing useful.

"There has to be something that we're missing," Dean said.

Julia's apartment was the last home of the unaccounted workers they had to search, and all of them had been wastes of time.

The neurologist's house had been filled with books and medical journals, the kind of home that Sam would have liked. He was a man who took things seriously, it was just unfortunate that human trafficking appeared to be one of those things.

The security guard's home had been the worst of the bunch: greasy pizza boxes left scattered on the floor and on any surface available, cockroaches free to roam the house, the stench of body odor was thick enough to choke Dean, and the man had a collection of creepy, handmade figurines (enough to make an army of tiny, misshapen people).

He didn't even want to think about that house, but the filth clung to him from stepping foot inside and having to search through it completely.

John and Bobby stood as idly as he did, looking around the small apartment once more, like something they overlooked before would appear and give them the information they needed.

John was the first to head to the door.

"We can't leave here empty handed," Dean said.

John looked over his shoulder at Dean, his eyes as cold as his voice. "Trails don't appear just because we wish for it," he said. "If there's nothing here, there's nothing here."

He left, but Bobby took a second to pat Dean's back a few times. "This is hard on all of us, Dean, but we'll find something. If I know one thing about Winchesters, it's that they're a damn stubborn breed."

Dean nodded and offered up as much of a smile as he could, but hope was hard to come by when Sam was gone against his will.

* * *

Sam woke up with more mobility and unclouded thoughts, but he ached a lot more. He felt like he'd been the rag doll of a feisty poltergeist and tossed around for fun. He couldn't stop the groan that escaped his lips when he tried to sit up, only to find his uninjured wrist locked in handcuffs to a pipe on the wall slowly leaking water and his legs strapped to a gurney that must have been stolen from the hospital to transport him to wherever the hell he ended up.

He tried to stuff down the panic, lock it away before it swallowed him whole. Dean had no idea where he was, so he wasn't putting hope into a rescue attempt happening anytime soon.

His power felt more accessible, but he wasn't sure if it would be enough to break the handcuffs.

It would, however, be enough to burn the straps keeping his legs immobile.

As he was about to reach for his power, he heard footsteps coming closer. He closed his eyes and pretended to still be asleep (or unconscious, he certainly didn't feel very rested if he'd really been asleep).

"We've run every test we could possibly think of." Julia's voice. "We've taken samples of nearly everything from the kid. Blood. Spit. Tissues. Hell, Brendan knocked the kid out and dug out bone marrow samples and did a spinal tap for some cerebrospinal fluid. Last ditch efforts, but still showed nothing. We've done every scan we could on the kid before anyone would get suspicious at the hospital, too. Even the MRI was clean. If you didn't want the kid alive, we could get a bit more invasive. But from what we see right now, that kid is one-hundred percent human, if slightly anemic."

Sam wasn't sure if he felt more violated this time or the last time Liu had him in his possession. Last time, he at least was unaware for most of his time at the club, too heavily drugged to register what was going on until the demon with yellow eyes showed him every single moment.

But how much better was being some freaky science experiment of Liu's? Julia declared him one-hundred percent human, but she had to be missing something. Humans couldn't start fires with their minds. That wasn't natural, wasn't right.

He imagined Liu had to be thinking the same thing he was: they missed something. They forgot a test or they messed up the results. Something was wrong.

"No, he's still out," Julia said. "I don't know what else you want from us. There's a lot of equipment here, and we've done everything we're equipped to do. We did our job, and he's human."

She paced across the room Sam was in, he heard the even number of footsteps, the turn, and a matching number of footsteps.

"What? Liu, I'm a nurse, not a damn interrogator. You can deal with it when you come collect him."

Her pacing stopped for a second, and when her footsteps returned, they started receding.

Sam's eyes opened, adrenaline taking away the remaining sluggishness. Liu was coming to collect him.

He wanted to kill Liu.

He wasn't ready to face him, not like this. Not after that nurse and doctor have weakened him. Not after he weakened himself by burning his arm, which was starting to feel a little weird. It felt warm.

Blood dripped from his nose almost immediately when he burned off the straps on his legs, and the source of his slight anemia was no longer a mystery. Maybe now that his secret was out he could practice freely so that wouldn't happen anymore. If his abilities were like a muscle, he just needed to work it out until it was strong enough that it didn't make him bleed.

He could think about the maybes later.

But Liu coming meant that he would be in New York City. If Sam found a way to contact Dean, would he help him track Liu, granted that he could escape in the first place?

He swung his legs over the side of the gurney, sitting up proving to be its own challenge. His arm twinged with every wrong motion and was more than useless in supporting weight, while his other arm had limited mobility from handcuffs.

He was already out of breath and ready to pass out again, body having been pushed beyond its limits a long time ago (probably back in Minnesota), but he needed to keep going. He needed to get to Amy, at least, despite not wanting to drag her into even more shit.

Dean would be a better option. His voicemails replayed themselves in Sam's mind, the promises he made that he would never forsake Sam. They would always be brothers, and damn anything that tried to come between them.

If Sam gave up now, he would never prove to Dean that he didn't mean to be a monster. He never hurt anyone who didn't try to hurt him or his family with the fire, even if he thought about it when talking to Dr. Parker.

Dean always got him through the toughest parts of his life, which were far more common due to the hunter lifestyle than they were for other children. Sam just had to keep reminding himself of those times.

He focused on the handcuffs chain. He could do this. He still had enough energy and adrenaline to melt the chain. He had to believe that, or he wouldn't be making it out of this.

It was tough, but he managed to grip the chain with the fumbling fingers of his burnt arm. He focused on one single point of the chain with all of his hate, anger, and the bits of hope he could muster up.

The chain didn't break with a satisfying snap. One small section melted away, and the handcuffs became useless.

His arm was freed, and he had one goal: get out.

* * *

Caleb arrived in New York City a few days after Sam vanished from the hospital. He spent his evening in the motel room, trying to track the phones of the missing hospital employees, but always coming up with the same results. They were all still in New York City. Either Sam was still there, or he was shipped off somewhere else without them.

The knowledge didn't help them at all, and they were left sitting around the motel room, taking turns driving through the city and scouring for any hint that Sam was still there.

In a city so big, with millions of people living there, they found nothing.

Dean never felt so hopeless in his life. His job was to protect Sam. Instead, he drove Sam away and right back into the hands of the people who hurt him the first time around. Who else could be behind this if it wasn't Liu?

None of them had much to say anymore.

Strange how a full motel room could feel so empty.

* * *

Sam felt sweat starting to form on his forehead and the back of his neck. He stumbled more than he walked, his head spinning worse as he was more upright. Every step hurt as his bare feet were unprotected against every piece of rubble left on the ground and the puddles of murky water that attributed to the rancid sewage stench that filled the building.

He kept his good arm braced against the wall as he moved, it was the most he could do to support his aching and protesting body.

He grit his teeth and kept going. Dean wasn't saving him this time, and he wasn't going to lay around and let Liu have him again. He wasn't going to roll over and obey like the fucking dog the traffickers and slavers seemed to think he was.

Survival instincts and adrenaline overrode the embarrassment of still wearing a hospital gown, and Sam stuck his head out of the doorway, looking to both sides to make sure it was clear before he continued his slow walk.

He picked left, since he had no idea which way was out, and stopped to lean against the wall every few feet, trying to catch his breath, but never seeming to fully succeed in doing so. His vision blurred, and with each step he thought more and more that he was never going to make it. He was going to get lost and then pass out in some foreign labyrinth of stone hallways once his body decided it'd had enough.

Finding the right way out might have been easier if the floor wasn't trying to switch places with the walls and ceiling.

"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing, kid?" Julia asked.

Her voice sounded far away, but Sam heard her jogging towards him. She could have walked and still caught up to him with how slowly he was going.

It was over. She caught up and he didn't have the strength left to do much more than slide down the wall until he hit the floor.

Her face swam in his vision, red with her anger. She smoothed back the fly-away hairs that escaped from her ponytail with a jerky movement.

Sam swore he heard another set of footsteps, then found another face crowding his sight. A man he hadn't seen before, in a security uniform rather than the uniform of medical personnel. His hair was stringy and shined with oil, like he hadn't washed it in quite some time, and his facial hair was left to grow as it pleased. His white button-up shirt under his opened jacket was dotted with colorful stains.

Sam knew he didn't look too great at the moment, but he imagined that even he looked cleaner than this stranger.

"Grab an arm," Julia said. "Liu won't pay us if we don't figure out how this kid does his thing."

The man obeyed and they hauled Sam to his feet, while he tried pulling his arm away because, for all of its earlier numbness, it was starting to hurt a bit too much. They propped him against the wall, held up only by the stone and their arms.

"Shit, Julia, look at his handcuff. How did he do that?"

Julia inspected the burnt-off end of the handcuff chain. "I thought Liu was just losing his mind, but I think this kid might have the superpowers that Liu believes he does," she said. "Holy fuck."

"You said he was harmless."

"I thought he was! Humans aren't supposed to be able to… It's impossible. There has to be some other explanation."

"What do we do?" the man asked. "Is it safe to be this close to him?"

"I don't know," Julia said. "But look at him. He can barely stand on his own."

Julia turned her head to the side and yelled, "Hey, Brendan! Great timing, we need you over here!"

Sam's head drooped forwards. Normally, he hated when other people talked about him like he wasn't there at all, but he didn't have the energy to deal with any of this. Not when darkness crept at the edges of his vision and it was all he could do to keep it at bay.

Julia left his view, and her shriek filled the air. The security guard's grip holding him up vanished right after, leaving Sam to sink down to the floor once again.

Sam lifted his head to see the security guard backing away with his hands raised in surrender.

"Stay away from me," he said. "You're not Brendan."

Sam watched the guard's head twist of its own accord with a sickening crunch, like snapping a wet stick, before he crumpled to join Sam on the ground. As much as he wanted to get as far away as possible, as much as the fear in him begged him to get as far away as possible, he was struggling just to keep his head up.

He turned his head away from the guard's body and found Brendan crouched in front of him, an uncharacteristically proud grin on his face under eyes no longer framed by glasses.

Brendan blinked slowly. When he opened his eyes, they were sickly yellow.

"Looks like you could use a hand, Sammy," he said.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Yeah, this time Sam gets a bit of a Hellish intervention. A lot of updates recently? Well, I've been on Spring Break. Since that's ending, updates will most likely slow down again.

I can't thank all of you enough for the support through reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting!

Leave a review before you go?


	19. At the Doorstep

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural. I am also still not a medical professional.

* * *

The lights flickered with an electric hum. Although rain tapped against the windows, it wasn't nearly bad enough to cause problems with the power, and all four hunters in the room slipped into full alertness. The flickering returned to steady illumination, but that didn't ease the tension in the room.

"A demon?" Bobby asked, not daring to raise his voice above a whisper.

There was a dull bang on the door, then the subdued thump of something hitting the ground.

They all waited until the sounds of controlled breathing and soft rain were the only sounds any of them heard for several minutes straight.

Dean wanted to rush to the door and swing it open. He felt like he needed to. Like that would be the only way to scratch the sudden, unbearable itch beneath his skin. It would be the only way to quell the urgency that was so strong it physically hurt.

John was the one who approached the door with silent footsteps, unlatched the chain, and slowly pulled it open, gun in his opposite hand.

Dean couldn't see beyond the door. John was mostly hidden from sight by it, too, but Dean still heard him say "What the fuck?" under his breath.

Dean moved to the door next, pushed past John, and froze. Laying in front of the open door was Sam. Sam in a hospital gown, pale and deathly still as the cold rain fell on him.

He was torn. While he wanted to do what he spent his life doing and help Sam, he couldn't take the last few steps to him. Sam shouldn't have just shown up on their doorstep. He was gone, and he wouldn't have run back to his family (the very people he ran _from_ ). The cognitive dissonance left him trapped in place, mind and body unable to decide whether he should help or investigate with caution.

Bobby and Caleb hovered over their shoulders, and John set into motion first. He pressed his fingers against Sam's neck.

"He's alive," he announced, after a long moment of silence in which Dean felt certain his own heart stopped beating.

Dean fell to his knees next to Sam, the harsh connect with concrete reverberating through his legs, and pushed John away. In a series of smooth movements, he flipped Sam onto his back and had him in his arms, ignoring the abnormal amount of heat that rolled off of his skin for someone who was outside and improperly dressed for cold weather. He made a lot of promises to Sam that he hadn't been able to fully keep, and his second (or maybe third) chance just appeared right outside the door.

He wasn't about to pass it up.

Bobby and Caleb let him back into the motel room without issue, while John kept saying his name and asking him to stop, but he refused.

Sam wasn't much heavier now than he had been when Dean carried him out of Liu's nightclub, and, as he set Sam on the motel bed (he could only hope that waking up in a motel wouldn't freak Sam out), he wondered when was the last time that Sam ate any substantial amount. Or ate at all.

"Dean," John hissed, pulling him away from the bed and Sam.

"Dad, what the hell are you doing? Sam is right in front of you, I thought you were past all that freaky mind fire shit!"

"This isn't about that, Dean," John said. "This is about Sam showing up in the middle of the night, unconscious, at our doorstep covered in fucking sulfur."

"What?"

Dean spun back around to look at Sam, and saw powdery sulfur sprinkled on his damp hospital gown and in his matted hair.

"You don't think he's possessed or something, do you?"

"One way to find out," Bobby said. He pulled a silver flask from his bag, took a place standing next to Dean, and unscrewed the top. "At least possession is something that we can deal with."

Bobby was trying to make him feel better, but Dean wasn't sure that was possible. He didn't like the idea of Sam being possessed, but if Sam wasn't possessed, then where did the sulfur come from?

The answers that Dean came up with didn't make him feel less anxious either.

One: Sam had been taken by demons and not Liu, but somehow managed to escape, find them, and pass out at their door (which, if that was the case, go Sammy).

Two: Sam was or had been possessed at some point.

Three: Sam _had_ been in Liu's possession and, for whatever reason, a demon was somehow involved as well.

The fact that a demon had been invading Sam's dreams while they stayed at Bobby's house didn't help.

Dean held his breath when Bobby splashed some of the holy water from the flask onto Sam.

Sam turned his face away, but he didn't wake up and there was no sizzling or smoking from the patches of skin doused.

Dean nearly passed out from the intense relief as the tension in muscles drained away, leaving his body to be supported by jelly. But the relief was short-lived with the realization that Sam was _right there_ and very much so not okay.

Falling to his knees beside the bed, Dean pulled Sam's bandaged arm away from his body so it would no longer be hidden within the folds of the hospital gown (which was filthy and would have to be swapped for real clothes soon, preferably).

While the bandage itself was damp, dirty, and clearly had not been changed in far too long from the looks of it, Dean's attention was caught by a folded slip of paper pinned to Sam's sleeve.

It must have caught John's attention too (who was now apparently back on mostly the same page with the possible possession situation sorted out, which Dean was beyond thankful for) as he plucked it away and unfolded it.

"What's it say?" Dean asked.

When John stayed silent, Bobby said, "John, read the note."

"'If you don't take better care of him, I will,' it says."

The words rattled Dean. Who would break Sam out, drop him at their doorstep, and threaten that if they didn't take better care of him, then this stranger would?

But Sam was right in front of him and needed to be taken care of, so Dean would take care of him. He wouldn't let this stranger get the chance to take that job away.

"We should get that bandage on his arm changed," Bobby said. "Get him warm and dry."

Dean nodded. That was a start. That was a list of tasks that he could do.

He unwound the bandage from Sam's arm while the others busied themselves in taking care of Sam as well. Despite the desire to tell them all to let him deal with it alone, he kept his mouth shut. Sam was the priority, not his own feelings.

John checked outside for clues. Caleb helped clean out and bandage Sam's feet (which had been torn apart from his lack of shoes and would not be fun for Sam for the next few days). Bobby washed the trail of blood on Sam's face, originating from his nose.

Dean peeled away the bandage, wincing every time it stuck to the burn.

"That's where his numbers were," John said, coming back into the room to help and taking one look at the partially uncovered burn. "He burned them off."

Dean ran a hand over his mouth. "I knew they bothered him," Dean said. "But I never imagined he'd do something like this. Shit."

"Looks like it might be infected," John said.

"He felt warm when I carried him in, especially for someone who'd been out in freezing rain half-dressed."

"The most we can do for now is clean and re-bandage it. We'll see in the morning if we can get something for the infection."

"Shouldn't we take him to a doctor?" Dean asked. "What if it gets worse?"

"If it get worse, we deal with it then. He was just in the hospital, do you really think he wants to go back?"

Dean didn't answer. There was too much already that freaked Sam out and locked him within his own mind. Adding to that list wasn't something Dean wanted to do, especially not something that could save Sam's life one day, like a hospital.

"No stitches needed in his feet," Caleb announced, as he finished wrapping them with Bobby's help. "They'll hurt like hell for a while, no doubt, but they should heal up just fine."

"Now that I've gotten all the shit out of the cuts, they will," Bobby said. "I'm glad you're a hunter and not a nurse, Caleb."

"Shut up, old man. I can take care of a wound good enough to last the trip to the hospital."

"How about you two stop bickering and go get all of us something to eat?" John asked. "I have a feeling it's going to be a long night."

Sam stayed unconscious throughout the entire time it took to take care of his wounds and get him into dry clothes. While his face had signs of pain, lines and scrunches, he barely made any sounds and otherwise seemed unaffected.

Dean felt more than enough pain for both of them, he believed. He brushed as much sulfur out of Sam's hair as he could, but now that Sam's hair was longer again, it got tangled in the mess of knots atop his head.

Once Sam was about as cleaned up as they could get him while he was unconscious (and no one dared crossed certain boundaries, not after what Sam went through in Liu's grasp), Dean picked the handcuff lock and pulled it off of Sam's wrist. One look at the semi-melted edge of the chain told Dean at which point Sam probably used his power and ended up with a trail of blood streaming from his nose.

None of them tried to sleep, and the greasy food that was all Bobby and Caleb could find in the middle of the night tasted like little more than sand. The miniature coffeemaker in the motel room was being pushed to its limits, and coffee grounds and filters were just one more thing that they would need to pick up in the morning.

Dean sat next to Sam, his back against the headboard of the bed. He liked being able to hear his brother's soft breaths. It was a comforting reminder that, by some strange circumstance, Sam had been returned to them (and he would make damn sure that whoever saved him wouldn't be tempted to think that they could take better care of Sam than Dean could).

Other than helping with wound care, John kept his distance. He sat at the small table with Bobby and stared over at Sam on the bed.

As long as he didn't do more than that, Dean didn't care. If keeping his distance meant he didn't act on whatever suspicions he still had running through his mind, then Dean preferred that he stayed away.

Caleb lounged on the other bed, turning on the news shortly after he announced that he was bored and it was too quiet.

* * *

Sam's shifting was the first signal that he was returning to some level of consciousness. He'd been moving just a little bit since they got him patched up, dried, dressed, and settled in bed, but nothing more than turning his head or re-positioning his limbs.

So Dean watched. He watched Sam become more and more restless until his eyes snapped open with a sharp gasp.

"Sammy," Dean said, reaching his hand out to grasp Sam's shoulder.

But Sam jerked away from his touch, throwing himself off the bed. He tried to catch himself with his burnt arm, but cried out as it refused to hold his weight, and he tumbled to the ground.

Dean scrambled over the bed to kneel in front of Sam. "Hey, hey, hey," he said. "Sammy, it's just me. It's Dean."

Sam curled in on himself, and Dean felt the presences of John, Bobby, and Caleb crowd around him, desperately wishing they would back off and let him handle Sam. Let him deal with it like they always expected him to for the past fifteen years. Why bother helping now, when Sam was beyond broken? Why did it take all of that to lift the responsibility, even a little bit, from Dean's shoulders?

Sam's breath came in harsh gasps and his focus darted around the room at random. Dean knew that he wasn't really seeing what was in front of him. His eyes were too glassy and unaware, the way they were when Sam had his bad days and wandered around lost in his own mind.

Dean kept his distance and tried to talk Sam out of it, bring him back to reality, but Sam did nothing more than rock back and forth, keeping his arm tucked in close to his chest.

"He's hyperventilating," Bobby said.

"Yeah, well, I can't exactly do anything about that. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know where the fuck he is," Dean said.

Dean tried to reach out again to Sam, but he flinched away every time, pure fear in his eyes.

And Dean never wanted Sam to look at him like that again.

So, he talked to Sam like he was a frightened animal without success until Sam finally passed out.

Dean scrubbed his hand over his face and, with a little help, maneuvered Sam back onto the bed. Dean sat on one side of him, and Caleb, being the next smallest, sat on the other. It was better than restraining him, but the bed was not designed to hold two grown men along with Sam, who still had plenty of growing to do.

"Maybe we should see if there's a room with a king bed open," Caleb said. "This is a bit cramped."

"Deal with it, Caleb," Bobby said. "You ain't the one paying for the room."

"We could get another room, then we wouldn't have to take turns sleeping and we wouldn't have to smoother Sam just to make sure he doesn't hurt himself."

John said, "You really wanna split up when a demon might be hanging around? Sorry, Caleb, but safety trumps comfort."

They kept up a tense bickering, distracting themselves from their situation, but Dean didn't join in. He pressed his fingers against the pulse point on Sam's neck, focusing on the thump, thump, thump that meant Sam was, at the very least, still alive.

Dean never thought the day would come when the most he could ask for was a living little brother.

* * *

" _Looks like you could use a hand, Sammy," Brendan said._

 _But it wasn't Brendan anymore. Sam knew those yellow eyes, and they didn't belong to anything human._

 _Sam pressed his back to the stone wall behind him, no where for him to go to get away from the demon. No strength left to make a get-a-way. He turned his head to look at the security guard, whose head was twisted at an impossible angle. Then, he swept his focus over to Julia, who was a pile of limbs with unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling._

 _Possessed Brendan gripped Sam's upper arms and hauled him to his feet. "Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled with the progress you've made so far with your powers. I always knew you had it in you," he said, flashing a quick, cocky smile. "But I can't have you shutting down on me again."_

 _The scenery around Sam changed to a motel parking lot, which did no favors for his already spinning head. The only reason he stayed upright was the death grip Possessed Brendan had on him._

" _Now, stay with your babysitters. I'll be back for you when the time is right."_

" _Why?" Sam asked, no more than a whisper._

" _I have other matters to attend to, but I need you to stay more-or-less in one piece," he said, pulling a folded piece of paper from one of his pockets and pinning it to Sam's sleeve._

 _Sam tried to open his mouth to speak again, but Possessed Brendan placed one hand on his head._

 _And the world went dark._

He heard voices first, all rough, but quiet. Familiar in a way that made him feel safe.

Fingers brushed against his neck, and he pulled away from them, opening his eyes to find Dean staring down at him.

"Dean?"

"Hey, Sammy," Dean said with a strained smile. "How do you feel?"

Sam hadn't realized how awful he felt until Dean asked him. His arms and legs weighed more than they should, and he couldn't lift them no matter how hard he tried. His right arm stung a little bit, and he missed when the wound was fresh and glaring and blissfully numb. If he didn't know better, he would think that he had just slept for a month (and maybe he didn't know better and he did just wake up from a month's worth of sleep). His mouth was both too wet and too dry, making his tongue stick to the roof like it was covered in peanut butter. He was hot and cold at the same time with a sour stomach that at least wasn't to the point where he needed a trash can nearby, just in case.

He felt awful.

He didn't say a word about how he felt, but it must have been written on his face as he did his mental inventory because Dean's smile faded.

"That bad, huh?" he asked.

Dean pulled Sam forward and upright, tucked pillows behind him, and propped him up like he weighed nothing at all, and he thought that, to Dean, he practically did weigh nothing at all.

Sam sunk into the softness of the pillows piled up behind him, but the comfort couldn't take away the edge of fear that lingered. Sam looked from face to face of the people gathered around him. Hunters. His family. People who knew what he could do and, no matter whether Julia and Brendan declared him human or otherwise, knew that some things could pretend to be human pretty well. Things that could take over humans to make them inhuman in only a supernatural way, not a medical one.

The idea that he was something supernatural inhabiting the real Sam crossed his mind, and it took all of his willpower to push it down before it consumed his mind, which was already too full to deal with much more.

"Sammy?" Dean asked, drawing Sam's attention back to himself and the lines on his face that weren't there before Sam ran away in Minnesota.

Were they? Even back then, did Dean have charcoal smeared under his bloodshot eyes and skin a few shades paler than his usual tan?

"Sam, can you tell us what happened? How'd you get here?" he asked.

Sam opened his mouth and closed it a few times, words refusing to form. Dean showed him a couple of white capsules and promised they were just to help with his fever, but Sam didn't have the energy to fight over taking a little bit of medication from Dean. He brought a class of water to Sam's lips to wash them down with a soft curse and an apology for not realizing that he'd probably be thirsty when he woke up. While the water was refreshing and cleared away some of the mucky feeling from his mouth, it didn't help him figure out how he could possibly tell them what happened when he wasn't entirely sure himself.

"Sam." It was John who spoke this time, his voice softer than Sam could have imagined after knowing he witnessed his display of pyrokinesis in Minnesota. His words not the hate-filled exile or condemnation he expected. "Sam, we need you to tell us how you got back here."

All eyes were on him, waiting for the answer.

And he felt like he was back in the chair behind a heavy curtain, waiting for potential buyers to come and examine him like he was no more than a slab of meat or a pet they could slap a tag on and call theirs. He curled in on himself, trying to bring his arms up to shield himself from nonexistent threats, but his arms were too weighed down and their movements too clumsy (one from solely exhaustion, the other from both exhaustion and pain).

"Maybe we should hold off on the interrogation until Sam's feeling a bit better," Bobby said. "We don't know what he's been through lately."

It was with obvious reluctance that the attention was turned away from Sam. He was grateful towards Bobby for too many things to count, and this was just another addition to that. As the attention faded from him, the tension that grew in his muscles faded with it.

Dean and Caleb stayed on either side of him on the bed, too small to comfortably fit all of them. Sam found it to be simultaneously suffocating and soothing. With all of the pillows tucked behind him, Dean and Caleb were stuck leaning against a hard headboard, but neither gave off the impression of being anything other than relaxed and comfortable.

Caleb turned on the news on the TV, and Sam slipped in and out of sleep with the monotony of it as his lullaby. So many people were in the room, that he almost didn't mind being in a motel room. It was easier to put aside the fear of being abducted when he had no energy left to even think about it and he was surrounded by people who were trained to kill, and didn't seem to be plotting to kill _him_.

Remembering Dean's voicemails reminded him that at least one person in the room would be on his side and watch out for him while he was so weak.

* * *

He found himself slumped against Dean one of the times he woke up. It couldn't have been comfortable for Dean, but he didn't show any indication that he was bothered. Instead, Dean had his arm slung over Sam and he gave a small smile when he noticed Sam looking at him.

When 'Breaking News' flashed on the screen, Caleb turned the volume up and everyone watched, wondering if the new story interrupting the droning repetition of the old stories would be something useful to them.

The news anchor on the screen was a middle-aged woman, grey at the roots of her hair that she desperately tried to hide under bright, blonde dye. Lines appeared on her face when she talked, and her make-up drew too much attention. She reminded Sam of many of the teachers he'd had over the years, the ones who did all they could to battle their true age, but always ended up losing.

"In the continuation of an already bizarre story, one staff member of a local hospital who went missing with two other staff members and a patient came forward to police and confessed that all three had been paid by a human slave owner who goes by the name 'Liu' to kidnap the boy," she said.

Caleb turned the volume up, and Sam felt Dean's arm wrap closer around him. The fake emotion put into the story by the anchor made it easier to detach himself from the reality that it was him she talked about. Yet there were subtle glances shared between the other four that Sam noticed—whether or not they wanted him to—along with a heavy tension in the air about which was more important: sparing Sam from memories, or gathering information about what happened to him that he wasn't up to providing at that time.

They were back to treating him like glass, and he was back to knowing that he was more fragile than he liked.

Sam missed part of the story as told by the news anchor, but tuned back into her words as she said, "…the doctor gave the location of where they took the missing patient. Police found the other two staff members who vanished, dead, at the location, but the patient remains missing and the doctor claims to have no memory of coming forward to the police or confessing."

Whatever else she had to say, Sam never found out. Caleb shut off the TV, plunging them all into an uncomfortable silence with too many questions, and, in Sam's case, too many answers left unsaid.

All he knew was that, if they didn't find and kill Liu soon, then this would just be the first of many repeats of the same story.

* * *

John left with Bobby on a supply run in the morning and came back a couple hours later. By then, Dean's arm had lost most of its feeling from Sam slumping against him again during the night, but he didn't dare move it or complain. Sam needed the rest, and Dean was thrilled that he was still a comforting enough presence for Sam. That Sam wasn't trying to get away from him and didn't seem afraid now that he was in a better state of mind than the first time he woke up.

"We need to clean his burn and change the bandages," John said, pulling things out of the plastic shopping bags. "Got our hands on some antibiotic cream. Hopefully, it'll be enough to take care of the infection before it gets worse."

Dean watched John carefully remove the bandage wrapped around Sam's arm, trying not to wake him. Dean felt how uncomfortably warm Sam's skin was, and knew that if anyone needed the rest, it was him.

John's eyebrows pinched together in his concentration, his face the same one that Dean saw again and again in the middle of hunts. Completely focused on his task, and on completing that task perfectly. The problem was the slight hesitance that Dean could still pick out in his father's eyes. The uncertainty.

"I know you're helping Sam, but I can see that you're holding onto whatever suspicions you wouldn't tell me about," Dean said. "This is _Sam._ It doesn't matter what he can do, he's your son."

"I know that, Dean," John said. "I logically know that Sam is still Sam, but there's a part of me that wants to call him a monster. There's part of me that thinks… Well, it doesn't matter. I'm taking you boys to the one person who can set these beliefs of mine to rest, or confirm them. I just need to know that, if what she tells us isn't what you want to hear, you'll do what needs to be done anyway."

"I can't promise you that, Dad," Dean said. "Whatever she tells us, I don't care. Sam will always come first."

John shook his head with a small, unhappy smile. "I should have known you'd say that."

"Yeah, you should've known that," Bobby said. "You raised those boys to take care of each other before anyone else. Hell, I'll even agree with Dean here. Whatever your friend has to say about Sam, it won't change my view of the boy."

Dean looked over at Caleb, who shrugged in return.

"I've seen and heard about a fair number of humans who could do crazy things. Psychics. I'm willing to bet that's all Sam is, and there's nothing wrong with being psychic," he said.

John finished cleaning up and bandaging Sam's arm and moved on to sorting the rest of what he and Bobby had picked up on their supply run.

Dean looked down and saw Sam's eyes open just a sliver, leaving him to wonder how much of the conversation he heard and comprehended, if any, and how he would interpret their dad's words. If he were the old Sam, the Sam from before trafficking, he would have taken it as an insult. An offense, the way he took most things that their dad said in recent years. Now, it was almost impossible to tell.

Dean mostly hoped that he was too out of it to hear any implications of John's uncertainty about Sam being _Sam._ But Dean also knew that his hopes and wants were rarely taken into consideration by the world.

"So, how exactly is your friend going to confirm or deny the bullshit in your head?" Dean asked.

John shot a glare at him, but Dean didn't feel so much as intimidated by it this time. He found himself justified.

And John might have felt that Dean was justified as well, since he didn't say anything back to that part of the question. He simply said, "She'll tell us. We're going to Missouri."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Not a lot of action in this chapter, but there a lot of important moments for everyone. A little restoration of confidence for Dean. A little love for Sam. A glimpse of Yellow Eyes, but he won't be playing a large role in this story. You'll have to wait for the possible part three for that.

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! Your support means more than you can imagine.

Leave a review before you go?


	20. Rifts

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

"The state?"

"No," John said. "We're going to see Missouri the person."

"You know someone named after a state?" Dean asked. He couldn't remember ever hearing his father mention someone named Missouri. Hell, John didn't exactly have that many friends.

"Dude, plenty of people are named after states," Caleb said. "Georgia. Virginia."

"Yeah, but Missouri?"

"We're going to Kansas to see Missouri," John said. Then, he added, much quieter, "She lives in Lawrence."

Dean's mind went blank. Lawrence, the place he vowed he would never return to. The place where his parents died. One from fire, the other from sorrow. As much as he hated to admit it, John was never the same after that night. Even the flashes of memories that were all he had from his four years there were enough for him to know, with certainty, that grief ruined the man John used to be.

The father that Sam never got to know.

Dean glanced down at Sam again, whose eyes were still open and sluggishly shifting around along with his focus. If not for those small motions, Dean would think that Sam was having one of his worst days, which he would completely understand. Things hadn't been great for the kid lately. If he wanted to lock himself away in his own mind, Dean could hardly blame him. Hell, sometimes _he_ wished he could just disconnect himself from it all, too, but Sam needed him to keep it together.

Dean had his priorities, and Sam was listed at the top.

The mention of Lawrence both ended the conversation and filled the room with a tense silence, no one wanting to speak of the family destroyed in that town, which remained a pleasant living place for many normal families. Normal families living out the days that should have belonged to the Winchesters.

Instead, Fate decided to say fuck the Winchesters, and Dean was stuck in another motel room with his brother, who, at fifteen, had been through more than anyone should ever have to go through, curled against him. While he wouldn't trade the fact that Sam was alive (and they could fix anything wrong with him as long as he stayed that way) for anything, that never stopped him from wishing that Sam could have the life he deserved and craved. The life that should have been given to him in Lawrence.

They should have spent their days playing basketball in the driveway, laughing while Dean tried to get Sam in a headlock when he tried to do the classic little brother being a shithead act to his older brother. They should have woken up to the sound of lawn mowers and the scent of freshly cut grass, then gone to bed to the chirping of crickets, the scent of burning wood, and slight humidity of summer enveloping them.

But they were trapped in a world where playing wasn't an option, and being carefree was even less of an option. They woke up to the scent of coffee, liquor, and the leftover muck from a hunt that they were too exhausted to wash off the night before (night meaning the early morning hours when they finally returned to their current not-home). They went to bed with aching muscles and bones, vision that blurred from knocks on the head and being overtired, and new nightmare fuel. They had to hold each other together when their guts threatened to spill out, or, in Sam's current case, when the trauma of what happened was too much to process.

"That sounds like it's a Winchester problem to solve, so I'm gonna hang around here and see if I can't dig up some information about Liu or the traffickers. Might be able to get in and talk to that doctor with a few fake badges if I'm lucky," Bobby said.

"Yeah," Caleb said. "That's a good idea. I'll give you a hand, old man. See if we can't track down some sick bastards."

Bobby mumbled under his breath about not being that old and still being capable of whooping Caleb's ass, but the humor got little more than a smile amidst the heavy atmosphere in the room.

Soon enough, they'd be on the road again. To Kansas this time, not towards Liu. But Sam was in pretty bad shape (again) and Dean wasn't keen on moving him halfway across the country again. A nineteen hour drive. John had to be insane to want to drag a hurting Sam that far to quell his own messed up beliefs.

Dean looked down at Sam, finding that his eyes had slipped back closed, but his breathing was neither deep nor steady enough for him to be sleeping. Dean had always been able to tell when Sam was faking sleep, living in such small spaces with him for their entire lives made it easy to know too much about a person.

While he knew that Sam was awake and likely listening, he couldn't tell what Sam would make of everything going on around him. He used to be able to read Sam like an open book, but traffickers had rewritten it in a language Dean no longer understood.

And that scared him.

* * *

 _Dean found himself back in his childhood home, his old room a forgotten relic of the normalcy he once possessed and filled with stuffed animals and toy cars and things that used to be the center of his tiny, tiny world. He definitely wasn't four anymore, towering higher in the hallways than he ever did in the time he lived in that house, but the signs of a fire flowed out of Sam's nursery. The billows of smoke and the warm, golden hues that spilled out onto any available surface, creating dangerous, dancing shadows._

 _The smoke coalesced for a moment into the shape of a man, his fiery yellow eyes the only feature burning clear before he dissipated, blown away by an invisible breeze._

 _Dean remembered the night of November Second as a swirl of chaos in his immature mind. The smoke and the heat. Wisps of flames trying to escape Sammy's nursery. His dad shoving Sam, bundled in a blanket, into his arms and barking out Dean's first order: get Sam to safety._

 _His mom nowhere to be seen._

 _His senses returned to him, and he ran into Sam's nursery, to see the sight that he only heard about from his father's stories._

 _But there was nothing other than the fire. The nursery was completely empty when, according to John, Mary should have been pinned to the ceiling, a cut across her abdomen dripping blood onto Sam's crib._

 _He left the nursery and its fire behind, looking down at the front yard from a room still intact and untouched by the flames that seemed unwilling to spread. Beneath the flickering streetlight, he saw Sam. Sam as he was in the waking world, a teenager still too short for his age. He had his shoulders hunched, like he wanted to curl in on himself until there was nothing left. His shaggy hair covered his face from view, and he didn't even look up when Dean pounded on the glass of the window._

" _Sammy!" he yelled. "Sammy! I'm here, I'm right here. Can't you hear me?"_

 _The streetlight flickered again, and when it came back on, a man towered behind Sam, the same man Dean saw when he was made of smoke in the hallway, hands on his shoulders. The man looked up at Dean, his eyes yellow and shining bright in the glow of the fire from the house, with a grin._

 _Dean pounded harder against the window, but it refused to shatter no matter how much force he used. He didn't want to make a break for the door, not with that man so close to Sam and oozing danger. He didn't want Sam out of his line of sight at all._

 _Where the fuck was John? Why wasn't he out there keeping Sam safe?_

 _Dean ground his teeth together until they hurt and his jaw cracked. He took a few steps back and ran at the window, throwing his shoulder into the glass first, the force of his legs propelling him out of the window once the glass gave way._

 _He found himself falling too quickly towards the grass with a rain of glass around him._

Dean jolted awake, sore with sulfur dreams once again lingering in his head.

His dad looked over at him from the front seat. "You okay?"

"Just a nightmare," Dean said. He had his back against the door of the Impala and one leg across the bench seat. Sam used his chest as a backrest. They were probably too old for the position, but Sam hadn't taken it well when they tried to lay him across the seat alone.

If this helped Sam, he'd deal with the pain in his back and the stiffness of his limbs. He'd put up with the smell of sulfur that they hadn't yet managed to fully remove from Sam's hair (which Dean wished he could say was the cause of the scent in his dream, but he knew he was lying to himself). Despite Dean's rough awakening, Sam's sleep continued on, fueled by fever and pain killers.

"You need to talk about it?"

Dean looked at his father, saw the seriousness of the offer in his expression. This John was still new to him, the one actively putting his sons above the hunt. Usually, it was Sam receiving the extra consideration. Sam, who had changed so much from his independence and rebellion that he needed the extra consideration to keep from breaking apart.

"No," Dean said. "It was nothing. Run-of-the-mill."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. How much longer 'til we reach your friend?"

"Not long. Should only be a couple more hours," he said. "How's Sam doing?"

While Sam's breathing was deep and even, his skin radiated far too much heat. Each time they cleaned his burn and rubbed more antibiotic ointment on it, it looked better. But his fever had yet to break, and John refused to take him to even a clinic this time. Not unless they had no other choice.

And Sam wasn't awake or his stubborn old self anymore. He wasn't going to fight John tooth and nail on decisions, he just went along with it all and left Dean to fight for his well-being.

"Not any better," Dean said. "But I'm sure that being dragged halfway across the country isn't what he needs either."

"Dean," John said, his tone low in warning, the one usually reserved for Sam. Almost a growl.

"After all the shit he's been through lately, how well could he really be doing?"

The Sam wrapped within his arms was the product of both their failures, no matter how easy it was for Dean to pile the entirety of the blame upon himself. John withheld information that would have kept Dean glued to Sam's side, but Dean didn't know and he left. He left thinking Sam would be safe, but he ended up losing pieces of Sam that could never be regained.

John drove on in silence.

* * *

Dean wouldn't have been able to pick out Missouri's house if asked, not even because he had only the light from streetlights to work with since the sun set long ago. Up until then, there had always been something a little off about the houses of John's friends, something that denoted knowledge of the supernatural and a darker life. Like how Bobby's house was worn down, repaired only when absolutely necessary. Its colors were faded and its porch had pieces close to falling off. It was neglected, no longer important when there were so many other things to worry about in the world.

Missouri's house was normal. Fresh paint. A green lawn, neatly trimmed. All it was missing was the white picket fence.

John helped Dean get Sam into position for a piggyback ride, his feet still not in shape for walking and his fever keeping him stumbling and confused more often than coherent.

Missouri opened the door before they even knocked. She was far from what Dean expected. Short and lively compared to the dead inside look of most hunters he crossed. But she wasn't a hunter, Dean reminded himself. She was a psychic, and Dean wasn't quite sure where that put her in this crazy world.

"John Winchester, you better get that boy in here and laying down this instant," she said.

John ushered Dean inside ahead of him and helped settle Sam on the couch, but Dean wasn't surprised that his father followed Missouri's orders so readily. The woman had an air of authority about her, and Dean knew enough about women that he wasn't about to mess with one that used the tone she had.

He wondered if Mary would have had that same no-arguing tone in her voice. Maybe if she was angry or frustrated, but Dean couldn't remember hearing anything but kindness in the four years he got with her.

Missouri sat on one chair, and John and Dean took a seat in the others.

"What on Earth have you gotten yourself into this time, John?" she asked, looking over at Sam on the couch, unaware to the world around him. "That boy needs a hospital."

"I know," Dean said.

John glared at him. "Missouri, there's a whole mess that's happened, but we can't take Sam to the hospital. Not only will they want to commit him, but he was taken from the hospital in the middle of the night last time he was there."

Missouri shook her head, lips pursed. "I know there's a lot that you aren't telling me, John. Now, why did you really come here? Been fifteen years, about, since your last visit."

"I think it might be best to get Sam and Dean settled, if you have a spare room. Then, we can talk alone," John said.

"Of course, I have a spare room," Missouri said. "Just cleaned it up, too. Had a feeling I'd be needing it soon."

Sam stirred a little bit more this time as he was hefted onto Dean's back and carried to the spare room upstairs. John might have helped with transitioning Sam from couch to Dean, then finally from Dean to the bed, but it was Dean who checked on his burn and his cut up feet. It was Dean who arranged the pillows on the bed in the way he knew Sam liked, and Dean who pulled the blankets over him.

While Dean got himself ready for bed, John disappeared back downstairs with Missouri. With his dismissal from the conversation, he wasn't sure if he felt like he had when Sam had just been taken and he couldn't be trusted, or if he felt like a child who wouldn't understand what was going on. He just knew that he didn't like being left out, especially when he knew their conversation had something to do with Sam, and it wasn't something good.

He didn't want to fall asleep, but the bed was comfortable and his last decent sleep was, well, a long time ago. Before the fall when Sam was taken.

It would be spring soon, he thought, but he wasn't sure if they'd made any progress.

If he had to choose, he'd say that Sam was hurting more now than he had then. They'd been moving backwards in his recovery, if they'd been moving at all.

* * *

Sam woke up with heavy limbs and a film of sweat coating his skin. His head felt clouded and light, like it might disconnect itself from his shoulders and float away at any moment. Despite that, his thoughts were clearer than they had been lately. He could process more than the fact that he was alive and felt like shit, as was the case for the previous times he'd woken up.

He knew that he still had a fever, he knew the feeling. The room he was in was dark and unfamiliar, but he could make out Dean sleeping on the other bed.

He crawled out of his bed slowly, working to keep himself steady and to keep quiet enough that he didn't wake Dean. Each step hurt, but he made it to the door, and then to the top of the stairway. When he heard his dad's voice and the voice of a woman, he stopped on the stairs and sat down, watching them from the other side of the banister. Listening.

"I oughta smack some sense into you, John Winchester," the woman said. "How could you even _think_ something that ridiculous?"

"Is it really that ridiculous, Missouri?" John asked. "You know about the things out there. You told _me_ about the things out there. So, what part of this is ridiculous?"

"Sam was just an infant when Mary died."

"Did you know that he had powers back then? Could you tell?"

"I knew he was a psychic, yes. I could feel power, but it was dormant back then. I could only tell that it existed. Not what it was or the extent of it. I didn't know how it would manifest itself."

"Why didn't you tell me?" John asked.

"A lot of kids have power, but a lot of them never tap into it either," Missouri said. "With how deep his power was hidden, I'm surprised it manifested at all."

"So, there's no way he…"

"No, John. What killed Mary was pure evil. That evil might have touched Sam, but that boy doesn't have an evil bone in his body."

Sam prayed that it was a fever dream, that his dad didn't actually think there was a possibility that _he_ was the thing that killed his own mother.

Missouri looked over at the stairs, at him. "I think you have more important things to deal with right now, John, because I think that someone's been listening in."

John came to the bottom of the stairs and looked up at him, face much paler than normal. He ran a hand over the stubble that was long enough to nearly be called a beard. "Sammy," he said, "what are you doing up?"

"Water," Sam said, his voice raspy and throat dry. All he wanted was to wash away the taste in his mouth, not hear about his father's fears about him being a murderer.

 _Aren't you a murderer?_

The voice in his head was the same as the yellow eyed demon's voice, and no matter how much he tried to ignore it, it always came back. Worse, it was always right.

"I can get him a glass of water, why don't you get him somewhere more comfortable than the stairs?" Missouri asked.

John helped Sam down the stairs and to the couch, bringing his legs up to the armrest for the sake of his now-throbbing feet. John, himself, sat on the coffee table next to the couch and stared at Sam for a long moment. Long enough that Missouri handed off a glass of water and left.

"How much did you hear?" John asked.

Sam shrugged one shoulder and looked away, turning his head to face the back of the couch.

John sighed. "So, more than enough. Look, Sam, I'm sorry. I let hunting and my own fears keep me from realizing what was important, and that's just one more failure to add onto the pile I've been building these past few months."

"You don't have to apologize," Sam said. The sound of an apology was so foreign when it came from his father's mouth. "You were right to be afraid. There's something wrong with me, and I don't know what to do."

He felt a hesitant hand rest on his shoulder, like it was uncertain whether it should be there or not. When Sam faced his father, he saw just that. He saw an uncertain father, not a drill sergeant. Not a madman hellbent on vengeance for his dead wife. He saw a man struggling to keep it together now that his mistakes were hurting his child in ways that he couldn't fix. There was no cure. No spell that could take it all away. No hex bag or ritual could right the wrongs. No strings of Latin could reverse the past.

The only thing he could do was the one thing he gave up over fifteen years ago: be a father.

"There's nothing wrong with you, Sam, and I should've known that all along. I shouldn't have needed to drag you halfway across the country while you're hurting just to have Missouri confirm it. You're a psychic, that's all. There are plenty of psychics."

"She said that pure evil touched me."

"She also said that you don't have an evil bone in your body," John said.

"I killed people," Sam said. "At… In China. I saw it in my dreams, men on fire and stumbling out of my room to collapse in the hallway. I saw it in my dreams, but I know it was true."

"Those weren't men, Sammy. Those were monsters."

Sam sat and stared at his dad for a long moment, and John let him. He let him have as much silence as he needed, falling back into the role of protector, that Dean tried so hard to claim as solely his, now that Missouri told him that Sam did not murder his own mother.

He wondered if that thought crossed his dad's mind before his pyrokinesis developed, that he'd been the cause of his mom's death. Right above his crib, right? That was the way John always told the story. Her blood dripped onto Sam after she was already dead.

Hearing that for the first time left Sam with nightmares for months that Dean couldn't keep away.

"You saw me as a monster," Sam said. The edges of the room turned watery, shifting in ways that left him dizzy and nauseated.

"I don't anymore," he said. "But, yeah, I did. Since the warehouse."

"You aren't going to lie about it?"

"Would that have made a difference?"

"No, I guess not."

Sam closed his eyes, the spinning of the room becoming too much for his fevered brain. His eyelids felt so heavy, and he wasn't really ready to deal with the truth that his own father saw him as a monster. Seeing himself as a monster and _suspecting_ that his family considered him a monster was different from hearing confirmation. Once it was said aloud, it became too real.

He felt himself being lifted by arms that hadn't embraced him in a long time. He opened his eyes and brought one arm—the unburnt one—up to half-heartedly return the hug. John's grip felt desperate, like he was caging Sam.

"I'm so sorry, Sammy," John said. "I've made so many mistakes. I should have been there when I knew what was going on back in Massachusetts. I should have told Dean why I wanted him to leave the case of the missing kids alone, maybe he would have understood. I just can't seem to get parenting right when it comes to you. I don't know what you want, and I can't give you much of anything."

"I get it," Sam said. "The hunting and moving. I get it."

He hadn't always understood the purpose behind hunting, but he did now. The traffickers, Davies, and Liu were monsters in human form, and he had been their victim. If how he felt was how the victims of the supernatural felt, then he understood the importance of hunting more than ever before.

"You shouldn't have to."

This encounter with John was a far cry from those before his trafficking, when every word threatened to ignite an argument. John was trying to make up for his shortcomings, but there were too many of them and Sam felt more like he was in the arms of a stranger than in the arms of his father. This man had been so willing to call him a monster, even when Dean promised Sam would always be Sammy.

But his father wasn't wrong. He heard Missouri say that it was true evil that killed his mom, and true evil that touched him. Despite John's faults, he was the righteous man. He was the one who killed evils.

And Sam was something that evil was interested in. Something that killed.

John held him close, but he felt the rift between them growing to a distance that could not be crossed. Hunter on one side, hunted on the other. No amount of soothing words or apologies would be enough to mend either of them. They were just stars, readying to collapse under the pressure placed upon them.

Soon enough, they were going to explode.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** It's done in time for Sam's birthday! Yay! Although, it doesn't seem like a very happy present for Sam. Hopefully, it is for you, the readers.

Leave a review before you go and make my day!


	21. One More Plan

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

It took a long time for John to release Sam from his embrace, even after words stopped being spoken between them. He hauled Sam back upstairs and to his bed, then got a fresh glass of icy water that felt great on his dry, scratchy throat and set it on the night stand. Maybe he wanted to have more secret conversations and brought it as a way to avoid eavesdroppers who got out of bed just for a glass of water, the most cliché story in history for snooping children in the middle of the night. But John just pulled a chair up next to Sam's bed and made himself comfortable.

"You need anything else?" he asked.

Sam shook his head.

"Try to get some sleep, then."

He rolled onto his side, letting his back face his dad, and pulled the blankets tighter around himself. He couldn't stop the tremors, and being coherent during a fever made it so much worse than being unaware and living in a daze. His body refused to listen to him, and kept complaining that his skin was on fire while his organs were made of ice.

When he felt another blanket being wrapped around him, he looked over his shoulder to see his father behind the action, his face set in a worried expression.

"We might have to take you to see a doctor if this fever doesn't break soon, Sammy," he said.

Sam shook his head. The last time he saw doctors, they wanted to hurt him more than they wanted to help him.

"I know you don't want to, but you might need treatment that Dean and I can't give you."

Sam stayed silent, keeping his eyes firmly on the bedroom wall.

John sighed. "Maybe, if we need to, we can find a doctor willing to make a house call. You won't be left alone with them for even a moment, then."

Sam nodded at that, and John seemed satisfied enough to fall silent for the night, though Sam still felt his eyes as they drilled into his back from the chair beside his bed. He wondered where this John was every other time he needed him. Why did it take so much for him to try and be a father?

There were so many opportunities for John and Dean to prevent everything that happened to him from happening at all, and he was the one who had to live with the experiences of human trafficking. _He_ was the one bought and sold and traded like property. _He_ was the one given a collar like a dog and branded like cattle. Twice. _He_ was the one drugged to the point where he couldn't tell what was real, and then spent weeks afterward unable to tell if he was even alive.

Tears spilled from his eyes that his father could not see. For himself. For someone else. For everyone else. He didn't know. There were so many things he didn't know that sometimes that lack of knowledge felt too heavy on his shoulders. He just knew that the tears felt refreshing against his skin, overheated by fever and infection.

* * *

Two days after arriving at Missouri's, Sam's fever broke. He had the impractical belief that his fear of seeing a doctor attributed to his recovery. That his fear fueled his healing.

He never mentioned it to Dean. He knew how ridiculous it sounded. It sounded crazy in his own mind, which was already fairly crazed compared to the average mind.

But Missouri seemed to know and told him that the mind is stronger than he can imagine, especially for a psychic. He met her properly only after his fever broke, and he felt a connection immediately. He loved the warmth of her voice and how her words were like the honey in tea, soothing and sweet.

He admired the unspoken authority that she had over John and Dean, how they never argued when she told them to do something. To fix something on her house or do yard work for her in exchange for staying at her home. She was everything that he imagined his own mother would have been, had she had the opportunity to live and raise them.

"Morning, Sam," she said, setting a plate down for him at the table.

"Morning," he said. He liked Missouri's cooking, he did. He loved the smell of homemade meals filling the house, too. But he never seemed to have an appetite anymore, even for the bland foods served to him.

"Just try and eat what you can," she said. "You're gonna need the food if you want to get better anytime soon. And once you get better, I can start teaching you ways to control that power in you."

"You can teach me?"

"Well, I can do the next best thing and give you ways to learn about it on your own. Things like meditation are powerful tools for a budding psychic. It ain't gonna be easy, but it'll be worth it."

Sam shrugged. He wanted to forget that he had any sort of power. He wanted to deny the addition of one more reason that he just didn't fit, that he wasn't normal. He never realized before how right the other kids at school were when they called him a freak.

They didn't even know the half of it.

"Now, Sam, you shouldn't be thinking that way. You aren't a freak, you have a gift."

"Doesn't feel like a gift," he said.

"Maybe not right now," Missouri said, taking the seat across from him at the kitchen table. "But you'll learn. You'll see that you can use your abilities to do real good in this world."

Sam shrugged. For so long, he pretended that the only thing wrong with him was the trauma he'd been through. With his family finding out about his abilities, it felt like he was being suffocated by the truth of them and the truth of everyone knowing. And he didn't know what any of it meant for him or his future. He couldn't see a future for himself anymore, not since he was taken and everything he knew about safety was stripped away from him. It became a chore just to be alive and pretend that he was almost okay.

"Enough of that thinking," Missouri said. "Now, eat up. Don't make me force feed you."

Sam's heart stopped at her words, his head filled with memories of Jerry and Rich and Liu, all wanting him to eat and look healthy, regardless of whether he wanted to eat. Sour bile rose in the back of his throat, scorching it.

He barely registered Missouri's words when she said, "Oh, honey."

Reading minds probably wasn't pleasant when someone was violently thrown into a flashback.

He got up from the table, intending to go to the room he'd been using upstairs, but only managing to make it to the first floor bathroom before he threw up bile, and not much else, into the toilet, the physical exertion of it leaving a trail of hot tears flowing down his cheeks. His feet ached, healing cuts were torn back open, but the pain felt far away, like it was happening to someone else and not him.

He felt his jaw being pried open and chalky, lukewarm protein shake being poured into his throat until he had no choice but to swallow it, and the memories brought another bout of heaving without anything more to bring up. He thought that he was over this, that he wouldn't be the victim to his own mind again, but it seemed like that's all he was. And out of all the flashbacks, the one that led him back to reliving the times he was force fed seemed the most prominent, the easiest to trigger.

No wonder his ribs became more and more defined each day. Food, alone, held too many bad memories.

He heard knocking on the door and Dean's voice calling him, asking him to open the door, even though it wasn't locked. He hated himself for continually putting Dean through all the stress and worry of dealing with a little brother who was, for all intents and purposes, fucked up. He hated himself for falling back into flashbacks again. Why couldn't he just pick up all his pieces and put them back together already?

Soon enough, the intensity of the memories faded until they were ghosts that couldn't be salted and burned. He saw the clean surface of Missouri's bathroom, not another form of cage meant to contain him until he was used, or while he was used. His lungs registered that there was indeed air in the room, plenty of it, and he could breathe a little easier. Deep breaths, reminding himself that he was safe now.

"Sammy?"

"You can come in, Dean," Sam said, his voice raspy and his throat sore.

The door was opened before Sam finished his sentence, and Dean knelt next to him, hand hesitantly placed on his back.

"Missouri told me what happened," he said.

"I thought you'd be angrier."

"Yeah, well, I made the same mistake. I just didn't have to listen to your mind afterward."

"I'm sorry."

"Sam, you don't have to apologize for any of this. You have every right to not be okay, and if anyone should be apologizing, it's me. And Dad."

Sam shook his head.

"Yeah, Sammy. It was our fault, not yours. We left you alone when you needed us the most."

"You couldn't know," Sam said.

"Maybe, but there was enough going on that I should've suspected something," Dean said. "Look, we can't change what happened, but it's a nice day out. Think some fresh air would do you some good?"

Sam shrugged, but he felt Dean's hands helping him up and guiding him out of the house to the bench in Missouri's backyard patio. It was still a little cold, but there were warm promises of summer in the air.

Being outdoors was nice, and it was bittersweet to realize that this is close to the area where he would have grown up if there was never a fire at his house. If his mom had been spared and they were able to live in ignorance about all the terrifying creatures that shouldn't exist, but did.

"Do you think that you might need professional help?" Dean asked, even though Sam could tell how much it took for him to get the words out. How many times would they ask him for his opinion on whether he needed a shrink before they decided for him?

"I'm not sure how much help a professional would be."

"Then, what do you need? What can I do?"

"I need Liu dead," Sam said.

Dean nodded. "I'll talk to Bobby and Caleb, see if they found anything from sticking around in New York."

"Do you think I'll be able to do it?" Sam asked.

"Do what?"

"Face Liu. I mean, a handful of words was enough to leave me trying to puke up my guts in the bathroom. How am I supposed to face Liu?"

"I think that Liu will die by the hands of a Winchester," Dean said, "but that doesn't mean those hands have to be yours."

"And if they are mine?"

"After everything that bastard put you through? You would deserve to be the one who kills him."

Sam sat for a long while before going back inside, deciding that the sunlight was too bright for someone with so much darkness in them.

* * *

Dean didn't understand meditation. He couldn't grasp the purpose of sitting and clearing his mind, but it seemed to help Sam. If it helped Sam, well, he was just going to have to stay to the side and let Missouri run that show, trying to keep his mind blank if only to keep her from calling him out on his thoughts.

There was something about Missouri that he liked. She was so different from most of the women he interacted with, the ones who only wanted to know him for his looks and a good lay. She had an air of authority and no tolerance for the sailor's mouth that won him the hearts of many pretty ladies. No, Missouri would rather beat him with a wooden spoon than listen to profanities spill from his mouth (a punishment that she also threatened John with many times, but never Sam).

He wondered if it was an insult to Mary that he found Missouri motherly, that he imagined that Mary would have had that same tough love attitude as they grew up. That she would be a slave driver like Missouri, making John and Dean do all the work around the house and out in the yard.

He bounced his leg on the ball of his foot, sitting on the bed opposite of Sam (who wasn't allowed to be on his feet, unless it was to use the restroom, until the cuts finally healed. As if he listened to that restriction, though). Missouri took up residence in a rickety chair next to the bed and was leading another meditation session.

After a glare from Sam, he stopped bouncing his leg. He didn't have to stay, but he didn't trust anything that involved Sam isolating himself in his mind. Not when Sam's mind was loaded with terrible memories that could send him into a flashback with ease. Or lead him back into believing that his own family was going to hunt him. Or send him back into the catatonic state he was in at Pastor Jim's place. Or lead to him inadvertently contacting the demon that was haunting his dreams.

Yeah, no way that meditation could go wrong. Missouri promised him that she prepared for the possibilities of Sam searching his own mind and was going to make it as safe as possible for him. But when Sam was involved, his safety was never guaranteed. When Sam wasn't involved in things, his safety was still not guaranteed.

He lounged on his bed, listening to Missouri's voice, but not her words. He wasn't a praying man, but he prayed that this would help Sam. There wasn't much that he _wouldn't_ give to help Sam. To pull him out of the downward spiral that he kept falling into.

* * *

He must have fallen asleep, even if he didn't remember doing so, because when he opened his eyes again, he was alone in the room and it was silent. He dragged himself up and out of bed, finding everyone else at the kitchen table enjoying their supper.

"I was going to wake you, but you really needed the sleep, Dean," John said.

Dean filled a plate for himself and sat in the open chair. "I'm fine."

"You looked like you were ready to fall over," John said. "You haven't been prioritizing taking care of yourself."

Dean snorted out half of a laugh at that. Of course, he hadn't prioritized himself. Throughout his life, he was taught to prioritize Sam's well-being over his own.

"You're no good to others if you're gonna fall over, Dean," Missouri said, reading his thoughts.

"Yeah, well, I slept," Dean said. "Happy?"

He got one shrug and one nod, and looked at Sam, who never joined in on the conversation because pushing his food around his plate was apparently more interesting. The fevered flush was gone from his cheeks, but now his skin color was too pale. Except for under his eyes, where the color was too dark.

"The food won't bite you, Sammy. You're supposed to bite it."

The glare Sam shot him was half-hearted and laced with fear, and Dean's joking attitude was snuffed out by it. If he could, Dean would have sucked the words back into his lungs. Sam had enough issues with eating, there was no need for Dean to call him out on it, yet he hadn't been able to stop himself.

A joke used to be enough to take away the tension, but now it only worsened it, and Dean was sick of trying to learn rules that were always changing.

He was glad for the small mercy of John and Missouri being finished with their meals and politely excusing themselves, though John lingered in the doorway like he was wondering if he should stay. He left, but Dean got the feeling that he was missing something.

"Sam… you need to eat," Dean said. "If you really don't feel up to it, no one is going to do anything you don't want. But you can't go back to living on smoothies, man. I don't want to watch you waste away like that."

"Dean… I can't. If I take another bite, I'm gonna throw up."

"Is it the aftereffects of the fever, or is it the flashbacks?"

"I don't know. Both?"

"Do you want me to take you back to the bedroom?"

Sam shook his head. "You've barely touched your plate."

"I can come back and get it after you're settled."

"It'll be cold."

"Sammy," Dean said, "it's already cold because I was sleeping."

"I can walk upstairs on my own," Sam said. "My feet don't hurt that much anymore."

"That doesn't mean you should walk on them and keep reopening the cuts."

Sam got up and moved towards the door, his unsteady steps giving away the pain he still felt each time his feet touched the ground, but he stopped next to Dean. "Could I borrow your phone?" he asked.

"Where's yours?"

"I, uh, think it's still in New York. I couldn't find it in my bag," he said. "I just want to call Amy and let her know that I'm not missing."

John probably wouldn't be very happy with the fact that Sam's phone was gone again, not after he just got a new one for Christmas. But Sam never lost a phone out of his own carelessness. There were always circumstances that forced him to leave it behind.

Dean made a promise to himself to earn Sam's trust back when they were driving to Austin, and now Sam at least trusted him enough to ask for a favor. Maybe he needed to trust Sam, too. Show that he didn't secretly fear that Sam was trying to set up another escape from his own family.

He fished his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Sam. The smile he received in return convinced him that he was making the right decision. In that moment, he saw a glimpse of the old Sam. The Sam from before the trafficking.

Maybe getting him back wasn't as hopeless as it sometimes felt. They could do this.

Dean could do this.

* * *

Dean stayed in the living room when he was done eating, doing his best to give Sam privacy to make his call to Amy. He didn't fully understand the relationship they had, but Sam needed to be able to feel like he could trust people. His family, and maybe some friends who helped him out however and whenever they could. He doubted he'd get the chance to thank Amy for being there for Sam, but that didn't make him any less grateful to her.

Like always, Missouri must have heard his mind running at a million miles per second because she walked into the living room and told him to sit his ass down.

"There's something I want to talk to you about, Dean," she said, sitting next to him on the couch.

"Well, I guess I have the time."

"Whether I wanted to listen to it or not, Sam's mind is loud," she said. "There's a lot in it that I would never wish on anyone. Fear. Anger. Loneliness. Hatred, towards himself mostly. Sometimes towards others."

"Why are you telling me this?" Dean asked.

"Even with all that darkness and negativity in his head, do you know which feeling takes over when he sees you?"

Dean's mind conjured the memory of Sam backing away with wide eyes, hands held out in front of him and begging him to stay away. Begging him to not come any closer.

"Fear?"

"No, son. Safety. When he sees you, his mind quiets down and the feeling of safety is stronger than anything else."

She gave Dean's shoulder a few gentle pats. "There are a lot of horrors in that boy's head, but just by being around, you help him more than you think."

She left Dean alone on the couch, with a heart that felt warmer than it had in a long time. With a heart that felt like it was just then starting to beat again. He felt useful and needed.

When Sam started his independence streak years ago, Dean realized that he liked the feeling of being needed by his little brother. But by then, Sam had decided that he didn't need anyone else.

And Sam needed him again. He wasn't about to throw that away.

Sam said he needed Liu dead. Well, once he was done with the phone, Dean had some calls of his own to make.

* * *

He should've thought to call Amy earlier, but with his infection and fear he hadn't found the time. She was reasonably pissed off, but not completely at him, and she'd sleep better now that she didn't think he'd vanished off the face of the Earth.

Sam shook his head. Dean used to tell him that an angry woman was terrifying, and now Sam believed him.

He didn't make promises that he would keep in touch, and she didn't ask him to. Their lifestyles didn't allow for delusions about maintaining contact with distant friends, especially when one of those friends had a family of hunters. Either way, he was glad that Dean gave him the chance to say goodbye to her.

Missouri had a lot of interesting books in her library, but Sam was having a hard time focusing on the one opened on his lap. He was sick of laying around, and beyond curious as to why Dean was making phone calls in another room. What was it that he didn't want Sam to hear?

Dean knocked before entering the room they were sharing, like he was interrupting something.

"Sammy?"

"Yeah?"

"I called Caleb and Bobby and asked if they found anything back in New York," Dean said, taking a seat on the wooden chair left at Sam's bedside.

"Did they?"

Dean took a deep breath. "Not much, just that Liu has a lot of contacts in high places. I think we're going to have to go to Asia to get to him. We know that some of the trucks with slaves go to his house, so we'll have to do some tracking."

"You're saying all of that like you're actually going to include me in it."

"But I thought you wanted to be included?"

"I do," Sam said. "I just… I don't know. Having a plan makes it feel real."

"Are you going to be able to go through with it? Pastor Jim wouldn't mind having you around if you wanted to stay back."

"I need to do this, Dean. I need to be there and be a part of it," Sam said.

"You don't need to force yourself, Sammy. No one is going to think any less of you. Hell, none of us could go through what you did and not break. We won't go until your arm is healed. Besides, we need to get you a fake passport and round up some plane tickets."

"I thought you were afraid of flying," Sam said.

"What? I've never told you that."

"Caleb told me when I was at Pastor Jim's. I didn't respond, but I heard him."

"That fucking asshole. Did he tell you that _he_ was the one losing his lunch on a boat ride? But whatever. I'm facing my fears, and you're facing yours."

Sam took a few deep breaths, trying to quench the nausea brought on by his memories of his first plane ride and his fear of seeing Liu again. He felt himself shaking at the prospect that the last living coordinator of his nightmares had a limited number of days left.

"You'll be just fine, Sammy," Dean said. "You won't be alone this time."

"I know."

It was strange feeling determination again. It was strange to have a purpose again, but Sam liked it. He savored it, and he knew Dean was right. He didn't have to face his nightmares alone this time.

He knew Dean would be right there with him, helping him end the man who ruined his life and the lives of too many others.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Time to transition into the last arc of Becoming Human: the hunt for Liu. There will be a part three, which I will give more information about when we're closer to the end of this part. Anyway, as Season 12 ends, the season for using fanfiction to fill the wait for Season 13 begins!

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! Your support means the world to me.

Leave a review before you go?


	22. A Long Journey

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Saying goodbye to Missouri was hard, her parting hug tight and lengthy, but Sam's arm had healed well enough and he was itching to get it all over with: the flight to China and facing Liu. The waiting made it worse, he assured himself. It was his own mind that was the biggest enemy. Liu was just a man. He was made of flesh and bone and an evil that was all human.

Before they left, Missouri gave Sam a wide leather bracelet inlaid with black onyx. She told him that it was good for helping with meditation and a strong protection gem, and if salt could keep away ghosts, why couldn't gems have supernatural properties as well?

He kept it around his left wrist. It wasn't bright or colorful, which he was thankful for. He didn't want something that would draw too much attention. He had enough scars for drawing attention, he didn't need flashy jewelry to add to that, no matter how useful it was supposed to be. But he hadn't felt any different since putting it on.

And then Missouri was just another dot fading away in the rear-view mirror as they headed to Pastor Jim's to meet with Bobby and Caleb and plan. It felt like going back home, and it was one of the few places that ever _felt_ like a home. But this time, there wasn't a familiar warmth accompanying the thought. Not when they were going home just to find a way to throw themselves into the world that took so much away. It was good and bad. Killing Liu would save a lot of innocent souls, but facing Liu could do a number of unpredictable things to Sam's already fragile mind.

"I can almost see the gears turning in your head, Sammy," Dean said from the passenger seat, looking back towards Sam.

"A lot to think about."

"Like what?"

Sam knew that Dean's curiosity was probably fueled by the boredom that came to him from not being the one in the driver's seat, but that didn't mean he wanted to have some in depth conversations about what was going through his mind. Most of it, Dean wouldn't want to hear. Dean, who had enough worries about their trip to China, didn't need Sam's worries piled onto him as well.

"Liu," he said.

"Oh," he said, his smile falling from his face. "Did you want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"If you change your mind…"

"Yeah, Dean. I know."

* * *

Pastor Jim's didn't feel like the sanctuary it had always been for them, not with the determination on everyone's face and the preparations to get to China. It would only take about six hours to drive to the airport. He knew the flight would be a long one, and it all added up to too much time to think about it all. He just wanted Liu dead. He wanted him dead before the nightmares in his mind could convince him that he couldn't face Liu, that he should stay back and let John and Dean deal with it.

Dean offered to let him talk, but he grew more and more silent instead. His mind had woven invisible thread from his fears and sewn his mouth shut with it.

It wasn't too late to turn back, but turning back was something that he couldn't do.

Bobby and Caleb didn't have much to say to him when they arrived at Jim's, just that he didn't want to know what kind of contacts Liu had around the world. That he didn't want to know how many others were suffering a fate he was rescued from.

It was still something he hated himself for, that he got out and everyone else at the club was left behind. And what about at the factory? What about the little girl he gave his dinner to? Where was she? Was she even alive, or…

Or was she killed in a fire that _Sam_ created?

His breaths became quicker, and less air found its way into his lungs with each one. His hands curled around fistfuls of his hair and pulled, but he didn't rip out any of the strands. Even pain wasn't enough to chase away the thoughts of how many innocents he might have killed when he brought down the factory in flames.

"Sam? Sammy, what's wrong?"

Dean crouched in front of him, talking in a calm tone, even if the wild look in his eyes was anything but calm.

Sam shook his head and choked on the words that couldn't quite make it past his lips.

Dean put a hand on his chest, and pulled one of his hands to rest on his chest. "Just breathe with me, Sam. Slow and steady."

It took a while, but Sam's panic dulled. It didn't vanish, but it diminished to a point that it was bearable and he could breathe in ways that provided life-sustaining air again.

"Dean," he said, a breathless quality still lingering in his voice. "Dean, how many slaves died when Davies' factory burned down?"

"Sam… I don't know. I kind of had other priorities at the time."

"Can't we look it up?"

Dean laughed, but it was cold and mirthless. "I doubt that he would report any deaths, not when slaves were involved. If anything, I would bet he did his best to pretend it was some accident in the middle of the night, when all the workers were at home and safe." Dean outlined the end of his sentence with air quotes, standing up and helping Sam up. "We should be going soon."

Looking around the room they always stayed in at Jim's felt different this time. More final. But Bobby, Caleb, and John were waiting on the first floor for them to finish packing and get on the road to the international airport in Chicago.

"I know."

"You could still stay behind," Dean said.

"No, Dean," Sam said. "I'm not sure I ever could."

* * *

Since the time they were notified of their plane's delayed departure due to storms at their connecting stop, Dean managed to pound down enough pretzels smothered in cheese to feed a small family, and still found room to stuff cinnamon sugar pretzels into his stomach for dessert. He offered some to Sam between every bite, but Sam declined every time. It was all he could do to keep himself from shaking, but he was pretty sure the trembles he couldn't suppress were easily visible. He didn't need to waste any energy on trying to keep food down.

"You should really eat something, Sammy. We've got a long trip ahead of us," Dean said.

"You know damn well that if that boy don't wanna eat, he ain't gonna eat," Bobby said.

Sam shook his head and pushed Dean's handful of cinnamon sugar pretzel away. "I'm not sure I could keep anything down."

"Yeah, how are you planning on keeping all of that down on the flight, Dean?" Caleb asked, a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Better than you kept down anything on the boat ride," Dean said. "Seriously, a freaking boat. You know it's easier to survive a boat sinking than a plane crash, right? The whole not plummeting to the Earth and ability to swim goes a long way."

Dean and Caleb continued taking cheap jabs at each other, but Sam was more focused on the large windows, though which he could see the airstrips and the planes taking off.

 _He didn't remember getting in the van. Hell, he didn't remember anything after being branded on both shoulders, a white-hot pain that he still felt with every jostle that came from driving over holes and bumps in the road._

 _The abrupt stop had him rolling forward and bumping against the back of the front seats. Only a minute later, and the back doors were thrown open, Jerry grabbing his upper arms and dragging him out of the trunk and onto the ground, where sharp rocks dug into his flesh and only added to the already blinding pain._

 _Jerry didn't acknowledge him, just pulled him to his feet and dragged him, stumbling, to a line of kids waiting by a plane, all of them with their hands bound, wearing dirty and torn clothes and hopeless faces. A few shook as they tried to quiet their sobs, but couldn't silence them completely._

 _Sam felt their eyes on him, even if they weren't. He felt his own eyes on him, watching as a demon forced him to relive every single second. He nearly heard him saying, "All this time, you had that power in you. But you'd already given up, hadn't you? You already wrote off escaping by yourself as a futile waste of effort, and I was so disappointed in you."_

" _That's not fair," Sam said. "I didn't know that I had any power at this point."_

" _No, but you've always felt different growing up. Stronger than others gave you credit for. Sometimes, you even felt like something foreign flowed through your veins, didn't you?"_

 _Sam didn't answer._

 _The demon grinned. "That one, well, it's a story for another time."_

"Sammy?"

Sam blinked a few times and looked at Dean, then at John, Bobby, and Caleb, who had all ceased their conversations to stare at him.

"You okay, Sammy? You just kind of completely checked out for a minute there," Dean said.

"I'm fine."

"Well, ain't that a load of shit," Bobby said. "We all know that you aren't okay, Sam. And that's fine. There are some things that change a person, and it don't matter who that person is or how strong they are."

"I don't want to talk about it," Sam said.

They backed down, but Sam still saw the unasked questions in their eyes, the silent wondering over whether it was a good idea to let him come, or if the trip to China was going to break him so irrevocably that he'd be lost forever.

They were questions he didn't have answers to, because he was asking them himself.

* * *

John went in front of him, Dean walked behind him, one hand firmly on his shoulder. He didn't bother to even try hiding how much he shook as they boarded the plane and he was seated right in the middle of his family. He saw their mouths moving, but all he heard was the roar of his blood pumping too quickly.

He was shoved (gently) into the seat, but the single seat belt confused him. He didn't remember the plane ride back to America, but on the way to Asia, there had definitely been a lot more straps on each seat. He held the two sides of it in his hands, the metal clasp not threatening to keep the straps so tight that they dug into his flesh.

"You, uh, need a hand?" Dean asked.

Sam looked over at Dean. "There's one strap?"

"Yeah, how many did you think there were?"

"Six?"

"What?" Dean asked. "Why would there be six?"

"Chest, wrists, and ankles?"

"How much do you remember about the plane ride coming home?" John asked.

"Not much," Sam said.

"And how much do you remember about the plane ride _to_ Asia?"

"Every second of it," Sam said, hands shaking as he finally put the seat belt on.

"Okay," John said, keeping his voice at a whisper and using the soothing tone that Sam recognized as the same one he always used to calm victims on hunts. "I don't know what your first flight was like, but a normal plane only has one seat belt, not six straps."

Sam nodded, but kept his head down and stared at his hands folded on his lap, gripping them so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

"No one here is going to hurt you," Dean said.

Sam squeezed his eyes closed and kept reminding himself that he wasn't strapped down and trapped between kids equally as scared as he was. No one on the plane was crying or begging for their parents. He needed to stay in the present if he was going to make it through this trip.

The problem was that the past was all around him.

Once the plane started moving, he knew that it was too late to turn back. Dean stopped whispering comforting words to him and turned pale, fidgeting and looking like he was about to throw up (Caleb kept glancing at him and fighting back laughs, only to be jabbed by Bobby's elbow).

Sam was pushed back into the seat as they started takeoff, trying to keep his bearings about where he was and why, but his memories overlapped with reality and it was hard to differentiate them. The feeling of his heart dropping down as the plane accelerated more and more was the same. The lightheaded feeling that came with the plane finally leaving the ground and ascending was the same.

The difference was that he could move his limbs and his shoulders weren't burning. Dean hummed Metallica from the seat to his left, and his dad, from the seat to his right, said, "This is going to be one long trip."

Sam would have agreed with that, if the plane's ascension hadn't stolen the air from his lungs.

* * *

Dean demanded that they find a hotel in Chengdu and take a night off before running around throughout the night. The jet lag and having to face his own fear as well as handling a thoroughly traumatized Sam exhausted him. He didn't like the idea of sticking around the city where they'd found Sam, but Liu still had one of his clubs operating there, the one where they found Sam, unfortunately making it the best starting place they had before they only had following trucks from private airstrips around Asia hoping to find Liu's home.

Sam hadn't said a word since the plane took off, but allowed Dean to lead him around the airport without complaint. He wondered how much Sam remembered, and how long he'd be stuck in such a disconnected mental state that was far too similar to the bad days where he wandered without knowing where he was at all.

He remembered the doctors in Austin bringing up the possibility of PTSD. He was also pretty sure that dragging someone back to the very place, to the very person, that traumatized them was not the greatest course of action.

Bobby berated them for not having picked up on foreign languages, but refused to elaborate on why, exactly, he knew both Japanese and Chinese along with the more common knowledge of dead languages that proved useful for hunting. Not that Dean was about to complain, having a translator would make it a hundred times easier for them to find their way.

"I wish you were with us the first time around," Dean said.

"Believe me, son, I wish that, too," Bobby said. "I would have loved to give those slavers a good taste of lead. Guess I'll just have to make up for that now."

Sam's footsteps were clumsy as Dean pulled him, to the point that he had John help him get Sam onto his back for a piggyback ride.

"We should have left him back with Pastor Jim," Dean said. "God damn it, why do I keep listening to him when he insists that he has to do certain things?"

"You don't know what he needs, Dean," John said. "Neither does he. Hell, I'm his father, and I still don't know what he needs."

"I think he needs what we all need right about now," Caleb said. "One really fucking long nap. Jesus, are my legs made of jelly?"

"With how weak your kicks are, probably."

"Could still kick your ass any day, Dean."

"Yeah. Sure."

Dean, were he being honest, thought his own legs might be made of jelly, too. But he felt the weight of Sam on his back and the steady breaths against his neck telling him that Sam was peacefully asleep (for now) kept him going with even and sure steps. No matter how exhausted he was, he refused to stumble.

He would not let Sam fall.

* * *

Dean didn't dream, but, between the states of waking and sleeping, heard someone else dreaming. Thrashing.

Sam.

He woke up fully in record time, pinning down Sam's arms before he hurt himself or flung himself off the bed. He heard his dad shift on the other bed, still in a deep sleep.

"Sam," Dean whispered. "Sammy, wake up. It's just a dream."

Sam pushed him away and shook his head, a gesture difficult to see with the limited light streaming in through the windows. "No," Sam said. "No, no, no. Get off me. Please."

"Sammy, it's me. It's Dean."

John woke up and turned on the light, but Sam's nightmare had its claws deep in his mind. "Dean, what's going on?" he asked.

"Nightmare," he said, trying to shake Sam awake once again. "A damn bad one, too."

Sam woke on his own with a yell, sitting upright and breathing heavily within seconds. He looked around, and this time it didn't hurt as much to see the fear in his eyes, not when it came from a nightmare instead of his crazy idea that Dean would kill him for being psychic.

"You're okay, Sam," Dean said. "Just a nightmare."

John stood a little off to the side. "Do you need me to do anything?"

Any other time, Dean would pause and give John shit about letting someone else take charge for once. But Sam was distressed and John might be Sam's father, but Dean was Sam's dad. And he knew that no matter how much John wanted to try taking the title of dad for once, he wasn't the most comfortable when it came to the psychological wounds that Sam came home with.

"Do you think you would be able to find me some coffee?" Dean asked. "I have a feeling this is going to be a long night."

John nodded. "If I can't, I'm sure Bobby can. Who the hell knew that he could speak that many languages?"

"Well, I'm glad he can," Dean said.

John left, and Sam's breathing had mostly evened out by then.

"Where are we?" Sam asked, snaking his hand over and gripping the fabric of Dean's shirt in his fist.

 _Dean didn't mind that Sam's head lolled onto his shoulder or that he felt warm breaths against his neck. He had his little brother in his arms after weeks of searching for him knowing that he was living a nightmare._

 _If he'd been given a high enough level of drugs to make him this incoherent, Dean wondered if Sam realized he was in a nightmare at all._

 _Wrapped in Dean's leather jacket and the top blanket of the bed, Sam looked even smaller than he was before being taken. Sam's hand slipped out from the layers of fabric cocooning him and clutched Dean's shirt._

 _"That's it, Sammy," he said. "Just hold onto me. I'm right here now, and I'm not leaving you."_

"We're in China," Dean said. "We're in a hotel. With Dad, Caleb, and Bobby. You're completely safe."

Sam nodded, and Dean moved a little closer to him. When Sam didn't recoil or push him away, Dean saw it as a small victory.

"You wanna talk about your nightmare?" he asked.

Sam shrugged, and Dean hadn't expected an answer at all.

"Sometimes, it helps to talk it out, doesn't it?" Dean asked. "You've talked to me about things that happened before. You know I'm not going to judge you. Sure, I might get angry, but not at you, Sammy."

"Just… coming back here. There are a lot of memories, and I try to suppress them to keep my head together and function, but asleep…"

"You avoid them during the day, and they come back with a vengeance at night."

Sam nodded.

"And a lot of the people who were behind all of that are dead now," Dean said. "We're here to kill the last big-name bastard from your nightmares."

"I know, but when I sleep, they're alive again," Sam said. He sounded exactly like the scared five-year-old kid who would go to Dean for comfort in the middle of the night after a nightmare because it was the only way he would fall back to sleep. "I don't think… I'm not sure that will ever change."

Dean pulled Sam close, not having any words to try and reassure Sam that his belief might not be true. Not when Dean had no idea if Sam would ever not be haunted by the memories of all that happened. Instead of spewing lies, he rocked Sam back and forth in his arms, the very same way he used to calm that scared five-year-old Sam. He didn't say anything, he simply hoped that his presence would be enough.

It took a while, but Sam's breathing slowed and evened out as he fell back asleep. Dean refused to let go. He refused to do anything that might interrupt Sam's peaceful sleep, especially if it was a rare night where he didn't need sleeping pills to give his body the rest that it desperately craved.

Dean's own body craved rest, but he didn't give in. He stayed awake, and when John returned (a drink carrier filled with cups of coffee in his hand), he found them curled on the bed together. One sound asleep. One wide awake.

He placed one of the cups on the nightstand by Dean, then took a seat on the other bed, watching over them.

Dean almost felt like he had a normal family. A little brother who needed him and a father who watched over both of them. The problem was that the little brother was beyond traumatized and that father had a tough time remembering how to be a dad.

But this was the family he had. The family he wouldn't trade for anything. So, he was going to hold onto it as tight as he could.

* * *

Sam felt like he was moving through water. The air was too thick and the sounds were distorted and foreign.

Dean had a firm grip on his upper arm, trying to keep him from bumping into anyone. But there were too many people and he stumbled into them regardless. Not that they seemed to mind in the haze of alcohol and anything else they might have ingested or injected to disconnect from reality.

Saliva flooded his mouth and he kept swallowing and trying to fight off the nausea, but it always came back.

"I'm taking Sam outside," Dean said. He turned him around and kept his hands on his shoulders to keep him moving forward and out of the door. The fresh air helped take away some of the memories and the sickness.

"I knew this was a bad idea," Dean said. "Why couldn't you just agree with staying back at the hotel with me? Why do you keep insisting on throwing yourself into flashbacks and nightmares?"

"Because, Dean, I have to," Sam said. "It's just some dumb club, I shouldn't be on the verge of freaking out. I'm supposed to be _stronger_ than this."

"Okay, you have to take some deep breaths and calm down, Sammy," Dean said. "I didn't want to set foot in that club again, either. I'd rather burn it to the fucking ground because I saw one minute of what you had to go through, and that was enough to haunt me for weeks. While you laid at Pastor Jim's trying to figure out if you were even still alive, that scene replayed in my mind over and over."

Sam knew exactly which moment Dean was talking about, if only because the yellow eyed demon showed him. Otherwise, he had been too drugged to remember what happened at all. The fact that Dean saw even that single moment made his face feel too warm and tears fill his eyes. He wiped them away, but the shame remained and they came back again and again.

"I'm sorry you saw that," Sam said, the words sounding more choked than he liked. "I have to go back in though. I have to… I have to face this. I…"

Sam found himself wrapped by Dean again, back into a cocoon of safety that he wasn't sure he deserved any more. He wanted to hide from Dean, not be hugged by him. He wanted to hide from everything and everyone and deny that any ever happened to him.

"You're okay, Sam," Dean said. "You don't have to do anything. You don't have to prove anything. We'll be back at Bobby's in no time, with Liu dead and nothing to worry about. No one else is going to put out a bounty for you. You'll be safe, and I'll be right there to make sure of it."

Where had this safe feeling been the first time he was at the club?

Sam pushed away from Dean and took a deep breath. "Please, Dean. What about the girl? She might still be here. I—I couldn't save her the first time, but I have to save her this time."

Dean sighed. "I'm going to regret this, but if you really _need_ this, maybe we can get in through the back and avoid the crowd."

Sam nodded, but he wanted nothing more than to run away from it all. Go back to hiding within the walls of a family friend's home, because he didn't have a home of his own, where no one could get him. But the demon said that by breaking, he would be put together stronger. He broke again and again, his pieces scattered, but he didn't feel stronger yet.

Just how many times did he need to break first?

Dean never left his side as they went around the club to the alley behind it, and Sam figured they might as well glue themselves together at this point.

"You're sure, Sam? It's not too late to go back to the hotel and let Dad, Bobby, and Caleb take care of it."

Sam didn't trust himself to speak, the stench of alcohol still clung to him and filled the air as the club goers stumbled out of any door they managed to find. They turned to the back, where some people decided to have their own after-party and were in various states of undress with hands all over each other. Hands that Sam could almost feel on him in flashes of memories.

Sam doubled over and threw up despite his painfully empty stomach.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** In a stroke of genius, Sam, believing that he needed this, has been allowed to join in on a trip back to the place that broke his mind, but his family is doing their best to help him out. For once, I didn't not copy and paste from Leave Normal Alone for the flashbacks.

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites!

Please leave a review before you go.


	23. Late Night Activities

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Dean rubbed small circles on Sam's back as he continued to heave in the alleyway, but nothing more came up. Dean, himself, felt on the verge of doubling over and joining Sam in emptying his stomach from the small amount of time where he witnessed what happened in the basement of that club. And he wasn't the one who was trapped in it for days.

The ominous note threatening to take care of Sam if they didn't do a better job of it wasn't helping Dean's nerves either.

"You're not going back in there, Sammy."

"But, Dean—"

"No, I don't want to hear it. I knew that I shouldn't have listened to you. I _knew_ it was a bad idea for you to be anywhere near here."

Dean waited for Sam to calm down enough that he stopped trying to heave up his organs. Then, he wrangled Sam over his shoulder and headed back for the hotel they were staying at, ignoring the stares of the people they passed.

Sam pounded weak fists on Dean's back, but they were ignored as well.

"Maybe if you'd been eating anything substantial lately, you'd be able to put up more of a fight," Dean said.

"You know what happens in there, Dean," Sam said. "You _know_. We have to… have to help them. We have to get them out."

Sam's articulate pleas deteriorated quickly into sobs and choked out words begging Dean to take him back to the club, telling him that he had to save 55943, that he had to save the rest of the slaves there because it wasn't fair that he was the only one who escaped. All of these reasons were told in broken sentences and half-words, but Dean understood.

It wasn't the first time Dean had to deal with a hysterical Sam, and it was no less painful having to just listen to him and knowing that he couldn't give him the things he wanted so badly, but Dean would deal with it just as he had years prior. Just as he had when Sam was a kid who didn't even always have a reason or an understanding as to why he was hysterical in the first place.

This time, it was even harder. Sam honestly believed that he needed to go back into that club, that he needed to keep traumatizing himself more than he already was. It was harder to know how to help Sam. None of them had gone through the things that he had. It wasn't just a hunt gone wrong, or a few cuts that needed stitching. These were psychological wounds bleeding that Dean couldn't see or find.

The walk to the hotel felt longer than it should have. It wasn't even on the other side of the city, but Dean felt like he walked across an entire country before they finally arrived.

He put Sam on one of the beds and locked the door.

Sam hadn't moved to get off the bed, for which Dean was thankful. On the other hand, Sam not moving was not a good thing, not when it could mean that he slipped back into his mind and shut out the world around him.

Dean went to sit on the edge of the bed, near Sam, but not close enough to be crowding him.

"We need to talk," Dean said.

Sam shook his head, burying his face into one of the hotel pillows. The gesture sent a surge of nostalgia through Dean. It was something that Sam used to do most days of the week when he was younger. If he had a bad day at school. If someone said one wrong word to him. If anything negative happened, he'd be shoving his face into a pillow and Dean would call him an ostrich to pull a half-smile out of the kid.

What worried him was that he thought Sam had grown out of the habit. Hell, he couldn't remember the last time he saw Sam like this.

"Yes, Sam," Dean said. "We're talking about it. I just can't understand why you keep throwing yourself into situations that are going to bring up all the memories that have been tormenting you for months. What are you even trying to prove?"

"Broken bones heal stronger," Sam said, his voice muffled by a pillow that wasn't as flat as those at the usual motels they frequented.

" _Bones_ , Sam. I'm pretty fucking sure that the same logic doesn't apply to psychological wounds. You know where people who keep breaking mentally end up? The psych ward. Or dead. You could have stayed back in America, safe and sound with Pastor Jim, and no one would have thought any less of you."

"He'll put me back together," Sam said. "And I have to save them. I… Out of everyone, I deserved to be saved the least."

Dean gripped Sam's shoulder and rolled him over so that he couldn't hide anymore. Sam's eyes were still bright red from his earlier sobbing. The remnants of the newest break in whatever amount of stability made it home with them from China the first time, and Dean feared that they were leaving more and more pieces behind this time.

"Sam, listen to me," Dean said. "I'm really sick of trying to get this through your head, but I will always put your life above the lives of everyone else on this shitty planet. If I had to choose between saving you or saving an entire fucking country, I'd choose you every time. Get it? There is nothing more important to me than you are, and I thought you understood that. I never thought that I'd have to spell it out for you."

"Dean…"

Dean hauled Sam up into a hug, whatever words he was trying to get out never heard. But Dean didn't think that he needed to hear what Sam was about to say. He could say that he wasn't worth it, and Dean would disagree. He could say 'thank you', and Dean would tell him that he never needed any thanks.

And there was only one message that Dean needed to convey, regardless of what Sam wanted to say, and he showed it through a tight embrace.

He would be there. He wasn't leaving Sam alone again.

"Dad, Caleb, and Bobby will take care of the club. They'll get everyone out safely, okay? Nothing to worry about."

No, nothing for Sam to worry about. Dean had more than enough to worry about for the both of them.

* * *

"I never thought that I'd see the same look that too-seasoned hunters have in the eyes of people so young," John said, taking a sip of his coffee.

Sam suspected that his father would kill for a beer after a long night of interrogating club workers and freeing slaves, but there was a warmth in his chest that spread at the knowledge that he was sacrificing the relief of alcohol because he knew that the scent of it would be enough to hurt his son.

That warmth was quickly chilled by guilt in the knowledge that Sam was depriving John of one of his most relied upon stress relievers, all because his mind was a mess of nightmares waiting to strike at the first chance they got. He felt that his own mind was doing all it could to cripple him, and he didn't know how to stop it.

He didn't sleep at all throughout the night, and Dean didn't seem to mind when he continued to cling to him. No, Dean only minded when he brought up the fact that he wanted to go back to the club to help.

"Did you find any useful information about where Liu is hiding?" Dean asked.

John shook his head. "No, we didn't."

"But," Bobby said, "we busted his club. I'm guessing that he won't be able to leave the country anytime soon because of the publicity. He'll have to answer questions, talk to authorities. If he runs away, that's as good as admitting his guilt."

"So, no location, but we bought some time," Caleb said. "We just have to hope that it will be enough."

"I guess buying some time is better than nothing," Dean said, "but why can't anything be easy?"

"Haven't you ever heard that if something's easy, it ain't worth doing?" Bobby asked.

"It doesn't have to be easy, but _easier_ would be nice," Dean said.

Sam knew that, to others, Dean's words would sound selfish, or like the words of a lazy man. But Sam knew better, just like everyone else in the room. He wanted the world to be easier for Sam, not for himself.

If he could take back all the arguments he picked with his father and brother before being trafficked, he would. He didn't see it before (or maybe he did and he ignored it), but his family loved him. He hated their lifestyle and made it known at every chance, and it angered them, but they never gave up on him (although, John nearly had).

"Well, that's life," Bobby said. "We just have to make do with what we have."

"And what do we have?" Dean asked. "How are we supposed to know which trucks to follow?"

"We find private airstrips first," Sam said. "That's where… We… I…"

"That's how you got here the first time," Dean finished for him.

Sam nodded. "They had us lined up on an airstrip and boarding a jet. No one else. Just traffickers and us."

Sam wondered, not for the first time, what happened to the rest of the trafficked that ended up on that jet with him. In all likelihood, he knew they were still trapped in whatever nightmare they were sold into.

"I wanted it to crash," Sam said, softly.

"I'm glad it didn't," Dean said. "I can't help you if you're dead."

Sam didn't argue that he might as well be dead inside with all that happened. Dean didn't need to hear that.

"We'll start tomorrow," John said. "I think we all need a bit of sleep first. It's been a long night."

Even though it was the middle of the day, no one argued. Hunters were used to odd hours, and hunting a slave owner was still a hunt.

Sam, personally, didn't find the lure of sleep appealing. Not when he knew what would slip into his dreams after revisiting the club. But Dean gave him sleeping pills and lied in the bed next to him, trying to guard him from both the world outside and his own mind.

"There can't be that many private airstrips in China, right?" Caleb asked.

Dean shrugged. "I don't know. Shouldn't we look at private airstrips in Hong Kong? That's where you were first, wasn't it, Sammy?"

"I think the plane landed in China," Sam said.

"What makes you think that?" John asked.

"The trucks they put us on drove for hours before arriving," Sam said. "It felt like forever."

Sam remembered the truck ride, and more-so the stench that filled the back of the truck that seemed like it had never been cleaned. There was no way to escape the reek of bodily fluids that escaped from pure fear and sickness. He felt just as caged while at the hotel room as he did when he was in the back of that truck. He needed to be doing something, anything, to keep from losing his mind.

But when he was outside, the world felt large enough to swallow him whole. He didn't want to leave, but he didn't want to stay. America was a world away, and their hunt for Liu was finally in full force. He should be relieved that it was all almost over, but there was so much running through his head that it was easier to not think at all.

"So, we're looking for private airstrips or some airport that allows private jets to land within hours of Hong Kong," Bobby said. "I'm not sure how much that narrows it down."

"Can't we find property listed under his name?" Dean asked. "Maybe there's a house listed under the same name as his house."

"Dean, do you have any idea how popular 'Liu' is as a surname?" Bobby asked. "If he chose a popular first name to complete his fake identity, then it would take us forever to sort through and figure out what really belongs to him."

"I could still give it a shot," Caleb said. "You guys check out airstrips, rent a car, and follow suspicious trucks. I'll crack into some records and see what I can find."

"You don't know Chinese. How are you planning to read records that are, I'm guessing, written in Chinese?" Dean asked.

"I don't know. I'll figure something out."

" _They half-assed their plan to get you vengeance."_

"Shut up," Sam whispered, quiet enough that no one could hear. The last thing he needed was the demon talking to him in his head. The worst part was that he couldn't tell if it was a product of his own subconscious, or the result of the strange psychic connection he'd formed with the demon. Both possibilities were equally terrifying.

" _I can lead you right to him. Let you have your vengeance. Hurt him for how much he hurt you."_

Sam bit his tongue.

" _Let me in."_

Sam bit down harder.

" _I can show you the way. Take you right to him, and let you do whatever you want."_

He tasted blood.

" _You want to kill him. I want you to kill him."_

"Shit, Sammy. You're bleeding," Dean said.

Dean had Sam's head tilted back and his mouth open in record time, but Sam pulled back from his hands, hating the sudden amount of attention placed upon him. He bit his tongue to avoid drawing away from the conversation, but he ended up doing it anyway.

"You bite your tongue?" he asked.

Sam nodded.

"Gonna hurt like a bitch for a few days, looks like."

"Probably," Sam said.

He didn't feel the pain at all.

* * *

Their day uncovered little more than they had to begin with, and Liu's whereabouts remained unknown. When night fell again, they went to their respective beds in silence, Caleb and Bobby moving to the second room they had.

Sam woke up in the middle of the night feeling different. He got up from the bed without waking Dean, but his movements didn't feel like his own and he wished Dean _had_ woken up. He wished Dean would have seen him moving towards the hotel door and stopped him. Asked him what the fuck he was doing.

Because Sam sure as hell didn't have the answer to that one.

He didn't bother stopping to slip his shoes on before he left, he simply stepped out into the night in a body that didn't feel like his own. His limbs were heavy and unresponsive to his commands, while his vision had a dreamlike film over it. He saw what was going on without seeing. He looked through eyes that no longer belonged to him.

He found a car in the parking lot with a driver in it about to pull out of his parking space. He opened the driver's door and snapped the neck of the man with ease, pulling the body out and leaving it in the parking lot.

He knew he should have felt something (remorse, guilt, sadness) for killing an innocent man, but he didn't. He felt nothing more than if he had stepped on an ant or killed an annoying fly with a quick clap of his hands.

The worse part was that he wanted more. He wanted bloodshed and death, but those desires didn't feel like they were wholly his own. Something had gotten into him, and he wasn't sure how to get it out.

" _Just calm down. I'm only taking you for a short drive."_

It was the demon with yellow eyes. The voice that he could never get out of his head, and now the presence that he couldn't seem to get out of his body.

He put the car into drive and pulled onto the streets. He could drive (illegally) in America, but he didn't look old enough and he didn't have nearly as much experience with it as his dad or brother. Yet he drove flawlessly through the streets of Chengdu.

He wondered if his eyes would be yellow to those who saw them.

Chunks of his actions were hidden from him. One minute he was still in the car and driving to an unknown destination, the next he was in a store with a pack of markers and a map of Shanghai and using a knife he didn't know he had to slit the cashier's throat. He watched blood pour from the wound and the woman reach out for help that would never arrive with a sick fascination and felt an even sicker satisfaction when the light finally drained from the woman's eyes.

He thought that he should be concerned about security cameras. If the store had any, he would be obviously recognizable, making no effort to cover his identity.

" _They'll see static and nothing more. Just sit back and enjoy the ride."_

Sam left, stepping over the body of the sole customer (besides him, if he really counted as a customer in the first place) in the store who had a matching cut across their throat that leaked onto the floor around them, uncertain as to whether he really came for a dumb pack of markers and a map of a different city, or to kill an unsuspecting innocent trapped within the walls of a store. He got back into his car and drove, but his memory faded to black again. Whatever happened next, the demon didn't seem to want him to know.

* * *

Sam woke up in his bed next to Dean, believing for a moment that all his memories from the night before were nothing more than a horribly strange, vivid dream. But when he rolled over, he heard paper crinkling beneath him. He pulled out a map tangled in the sheets and unfolded it, a path starting from a train station on it drawn in marker and ending at an 'x' a short distance outside of the city with 'Liu' written above it.

Dean shifted beside him, mumbling incoherently, then sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Sammy? Whaddya got there?"

Dean yawned and looked at him again, nearly falling from the bed with wide eyes. "Holy shit, Sam. What the fuck happened?"

Sam looked down at himself while Dean ran his hands over stains of blood on Sam's arms and clothing.

"Shit. Shit. Shit. Where is this all from?"

"I don't think it's mine," Sam said.

"Then, whose is it?"

Sam heard his dad shift and sit up in the next bed, and this really wasn't something he wanted his dad to see. If he was willing to believe Sam was a monster when he used pyrokinesis to save his family, what would he think when his psychic son woke up covered in blood.

"Dean? Sam? Everything alright?"

"Is Sam waking up covered in blood that isn't his own alright?"

John was by his side in a second, and Sam felt crowded. He plucked the map from Sam's hands. "What's this?"

"A map," Sam said. "One that leads to Liu, I think."

"Where did you get this?" John asked. "And whose blood is on you?"

"How did you get blood on you in the first place?" Dean asked.

Sam brought his hands up to either side of his head, gripping fistfuls of his hair. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Just shut up. Shut up!"

"Okay. Okay, Sam. One thing at a time," Dean said. "Maybe we should start with getting that blood off you, and Dad can go show Caleb and Bobby your map. See what they think about it."

"Right," John said, getting dressed in record time. "I'll figure out what's going on with this. You figure out what's going on with Sam."

John left the room, and Sam felt Dean's hands covering his own, prying them away from his head and his hair.

"Alright, Sammy. What's going on?" Dean asked. "It's just you and me. Anything you don't want Dad to hear will never make it to his ears."

Dean read him too well, as always. As much as Sam didn't want to relive the pieces of memories he had from the night before, Dean needed to know at least.

What if the demon was still in him?

Dean went to the bathroom and returned with one of the white washcloths wet in warm water. He scrubbed away the dry, flaky blood on Sam's arms and hands.

"Can you check if I'm still me?" Sam asked. His words sounded breathless, but he felt pretty breathless at the moment.

Dean paused and looked at Sam. "What do you mean?"

"I thought it was a dream, but my body wasn't mine," Sam said. "What if it still isn't?"

Sam felt mostly normal. He could move with ease and the dark and evil thoughts no longer plagued his mind in ways that made him believe that he wanted or enjoyed bloodshed and the loss of the lives of innocents.

"That sounds more like sleep walking."

"It wasn't," Sam said. He stayed silent for a long moment before he continued. "It _wasn't_. It was the demon with yellow eyes."

"How do you know? He's been in your dreams."

"It felt different. I mean, fucking look at me. I woke up covered in blood with a map that points straight to Liu, after the demon spent the day telling me that he could lead me to him."

Dean froze. "Why didn't you say anything yesterday?"

"I thought I was just losing my mind! It'd be easier if that was all any of this was."

"Alright. Shit. I think Dad still keeps a flask of holy water in the nightstand. Out of all the habits he could've picked up from Bobby, I'm glad that one won out," Dean said, opening the drawer and pulling out a silver flask. He poured a few drops onto Sam's skin, but nothing happened. No smoke. No pain or sizzling.

"There. See? Nothing."

"But—"

"No, Sam," Dean said. "Just calm down. Whatever happened last night is over now. I don't want to be grateful to a demon, but if that map is real, then we can head to Liu and get this shit-show over with in no time."

Dean kept his words calm and his voice soft, but all his movements were laced with a tension that Sam couldn't place. He knew Dean was hiding something from him, he was lying or omitting some of the truth, but Sam had too much to deal with.

Like literally having the blood of innocents staining his hands.

"Do you remember that toy Bobby gave you when we were kids? The one that I hated."

Sam had to think for a second before he remembered it, uncertain as to why Dean would think of it at that time in the first place. "The metal dump truck?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "Do you remember why he got it in the first place?"

"He got it after his wife died. She wanted kids, and he didn't. But when she died, he bought it as a sort of tribute to her."

"Yeah, and why did he give it to you?"

"Because his wife would've wanted it to be put to use. Because he thought she would want us to have normal toys, even if we weren't her children. Dean, you know all this. Why ask me about it?"

"Well," Dean said, "you're not on the verge of hyperventilating anymore."

And, of course, Dean was right. The things that Sam worried about moments before were no longer at the forefront of his mind. Instead, his thoughts revolved around the little metal toy Bobby gave him a lifetime ago. He loved it, but Dean hated how it would pinch his fingers if he grabbed it wrong.

"I don't know the whole story, but I don't think you're still possessed. Everything is going to be fine. We'll get out of this city soon enough, and then we'll be on our way back home in no time. We'll figure it all out. You just have to believe in that."

Sam wanted to, but how could he when it sounded like Dean didn't believe in it himself?

* * *

 **Author's Note:** We're so, so close now! Yellow Eyes is taking up a bit of a role and getting more hands-on in his form of helping, Dean has too much to worry about, and John's list of things to be concerned about when it comes to Sam is getting longer.

Thank you so much to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! Your support is what helps me keep going and getting through such long projects.


	24. Doorstep of Vengeance

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

Sam watched the world pass by through the window of the train, looking more at peace than he had in a long time.

A flask filled with holy water weighed heavily in the pocket of Dean's jacket. The events of the previous morning forced all of them into taking extra precautions, and Dean hated it. He hated that they had to watch Sam so closely just to make sure there wasn't a demon hanging around and ready to take his body out for a joy ride.

The train ride, at least, would be one decent memory for Sam. And it would be one hell of a long ride, but Dean fueled up on coffee and it wasn't like the number of fears running through his head would let him sleep anyway.

" _If you don't take better care of him, I will."_

The words alone were ominous enough, but now they were coupled with possessing Sam, and they held more threats than ever. He thought the world was dangerous before, but he never considered the human monsters. He never thought that Sam would be targeted by so many things that wanted to use him.

It was sick. Sam was too innocent to be corrupted by demons or humans.

Sam, unaware of Dean's inner turmoil, stayed silent. Ever since he woke up in a panic over his possession, he hadn't spoken much after Dean calmed him down. One word answers, maybe two. Dean just wanted to know what was going on in Sam's head because it was becoming way too difficult to tell with his eerily blank expression.

John and Bobby were in the seats on the other side of the aisle, while Caleb was in front of them, sprawled out and asleep.

Sam would do well to take a few pages from Caleb's book.

"It's okay if you want to get some shut-eye," Dean said. "I'll be right here and awake the whole time."

Sam shrugged. He didn't even bother pulling his focus away from the window to look at Dean.

"Sammy, you need to sleep. You already weren't sleeping well, and now…"

"What I need," Sam said, "is Liu dead. What I need is to be back in America and be able to live each day without worrying about traffickers singling me out because of him."

And maybe Sam spoke more than a handful of words, but they sounded too vengeful to be from his brother's mouth.

He wanted _his_ Sam back. The one from before he failed so miserably. But he would still give Sam what he needed.

If he was being honest, _he_ needed Liu dead, too.

That would take one source of uneasiness away, at least. Once news of his death spread, there probably wouldn't be any traffickers trying to get Sam again. Why bother, if the person who would be paying them was dead?

But that still left the matter of the demon who had his eyes on Sam. Something ancient, powerful, and sinister. Strong enough to make their dad doubt his own son, and shake his confidence that Sam was _Sam_ once again. Dean caught the looks John sometimes shot Sam when Sam wasn't looking, and Dean made it a point to keep himself between them.

After a couple hours on the train, Dean got up and walked up and down the aisles. Anything to remove the stiffness from his legs and the excess energy and anticipation over the fact that they were on their way to kill the man who hurt Sam so much. And Dean was going to enjoy it.

Walking the aisles, the hair on the back of Dean's neck stood up. He felt watched. Under observation, and the observers' attention was filled with malicious intent.

He'd been a hunter long enough to know what evil felt like. If only he could brush it off as paranoia, the product of too many worries and fears and not enough sleep (and maybe too much caffeine).

He glanced at the face of every passenger as he walked, trying to take in more detail each time he passed. He rubbed his eyes at the end of the aisle and turned around again. He had to be seeing things.

An older man grabbed Dean's wrist and stopped him, speaking in perfect English. "Sit down, boy. I'm getting dizzy watching you."

Dean stared into pure black eyes and a serpentine smile, then pulled his wrist away and went back to his seat.

"Dean?" John said. "Everything alright?"

Dean laughed. "Has everything ever been alright?"

"You know what I mean."

Dean leaned across the aisle, and John took the cue to meet him halfway. "I think there are demons on the train," Dean said. "When I was walking, I saw black eyes."

John's eyes narrowed and the set of his jaw was enough to let Dean know that he was clenching his teeth. He stood up and walked the aisle himself.

He probably wanted to douse all the passengers with holy water as much as Dean did.

If they didn't want to look crazy, they just had to deal with it. As long as Sam didn't find out and none of them made any moves, Dean could manage. The supernatural had to wait, they had other monsters to hunt first.

* * *

Liu's home was… big. No, it was huge, larger than any house Sam had seen in the past. It was a mansion. Being on the outskirts of the property, Sam couldn't figure out how he felt. He was finally staring down his vengeance, but was it supposed to leave him so empty inside?

They took the disguise of a delivery truck, good enough to get them through the gates, but not much else. They'd all worked with less, however, and lying was a key piece of the hunting lifestyle.

They drove around the fountain in front of the mansion, centered in the middle of the driveway that doubled back on itself, bubbling up water around a stone figure, cut to appear perfectly abstract and leave the viewer guessing at what it was supposed to be, and looking innocuous in front of a place that housed one of the people responsible for so many of Sam's nightmares.

This could really be it, and being so close felt unreal. He pinched himself just to check if he was dreaming.

He wasn't.

Still, it felt unreal to finally be there. Hell, the past months felt unreal, and he held onto the wish that he was only dreaming when traffickers snatched him in the middle of the night. He held onto the wish that he would wake up to Dean shaking him and telling him in the too-loud voice he always had when he was drunk what he did at the bar, completely forgetting that it was the middle of the night and Sam had been deep asleep just moments prior.

But those were just wishes, and Sam had to live with the truth.

It was shocking how poor disguises coupled with pretending that they belonged and Bobby's interpreter skills got them past the mansion's doors. Although, Sam couldn't help but think it was only a matter of time before the guard at the door realized that deliverymen usually didn't _enter_ a residence for a delivery. Most packages were left at the door.

Sam wondered if Liu felt threatened; there seemed to be a lot of security guards hanging around. Each one had a gun, and that left an uneasy feeling in his stomach. If it came to it, the guards had more firepower than they did (no matter how well Caleb managed to hide weapons in their luggage), and burning them would mean burning the mansion down. If he burned the mansion down, Liu would have too much time to escape.

The inside of the mansion was as clean as Sam expected, having seen how well the basement of the club was taken care of. He remembered the attached bathroom and the variety of soaps and shampoos. He remembered the clean dishes that food was served on.

The wooden floors of the mansion were polished to the point that he could see his reflection in the areas that weren't covered in thick rugs. Paintings as tall as Sam decorated the halls. Some parts had statuettes instead, little people carved out of marble staring at him with their cold, dead eyes. All of it was ornate. Extravagant. Something straight out of movies.

It was large. It was beyond large, and there had to be dozens of rooms. Dozens of possible places where the innocent might be held against their will. Maybe there were no slaves there, but Sam doubted that Liu paid to get his home so spotless and his lawn so carefully manicured. At the very least, he had to have slaves performing household labor tasks.

It was the smell, though, that got to Sam. It was the smell that made saliva pool in his mouth and his stomach twist and turn in revolt. It was the smell that tickled the edges of his mind with memories that he didn't want to remember. One part herbal, like a strong tea. One part ancient wood. Another part chemically pungent, like heavy-duty cleaning products.

One of the guards that passed them in the hall, turned around and grabbed Bobby's arm, forcing their attention onto him.

Sam didn't understand what he said, but it couldn't have been anything good considering Bobby decked the man shortly after. And then he hit the man a few more times after he fell to the ground. Gunshots would draw immediate attention, an unconscious guard hidden away would take longer to find.

It was all about buying time, because there was no way they would ever have enough to comb the entire house before someone tipped off Liu and spirited him away.

John and Dean pulled the guy from the floor.

"Put him in one of the rooms, and then we gotta get on the move," Bobby said.

They put him in the nearest room. Barricading it would have drawn attention, but it still left Sam with an uneasy feeling that they were just leaving him knocked out and able to do whatever he pleased when he woke up. The most they could do was tie him up and hope that he didn't have the ability to free himself from poorly crafted handcuffs made of cloth strips, or that one of the other guards didn't stumble upon him. Or hope that he might have short-term memory loss from the blows Bobby bestowed upon him and wouldn't remember how he ended up there.

* * *

The place was a fucking maze. They left the unconscious guard behind and peeked around corners before moving forward into new hallways, but even Sam was having a hard time keeping track of where they've been.

They opened every door and checked in every room in case there were slaves hidden anywhere.

They hadn't found any yet, but Sam wasn't certain that was a good sign. They'd all been well-hidden at the club. What sort of hiding places could Liu concoct in a mansion of this size? Maybe the traffickers lied and slaves weren't really brought straight to Liu's home. Maybe it just acted as a stopping place on the way to where they were going in the end.

"I feel like I've walked into the witch's lair in a children's movie," Dean whispered.

Maybe it was said with the intention to lighten the mood, but Sam couldn't deny that Dean wasn't wrong. The air felt heavy. Ominous. It felt like something bad was about to happen, but they couldn't prepare when they didn't know what kind of storm was brewing.

"Where is he?" Sam asked.

What if it was all for nothing and Liu had gotten away? What the fuck were they supposed to do then?

John shushed them, and Sam heard a chorus of footsteps getting louder along with shouts that he couldn't understand.

The chaos was sudden and disorienting. Dean ushered Sam around a corner and gunshots rang out.

"What the fuck is going on?" Sam asked.

"I'm gonna guess they figured out we aren't supposed to be here."

John, Caleb, and Bobby fell perfectly into hunter mode, hidden behind what cover they could find and systematically trying to take down the guards shooting at them.

John motioned for them to move on. "Go find Liu before he has a chance to escape," he said. "We can handle a few guards and keep them off your back."

Dean didn't need any more instructions before he was leading Sam through the halls.

" _Borrow my eyes."_

Sam's vision blurred for a second, and he stumbled behind Dean. But when it cleared again, the colors of the mansion were distorted. One path was in color, while everywhere else became grey. And then, Sam was leading Dean through the halls.

"How do you know where we're going?" Dean asked.

"Just trust me for now," Sam said. "I'll explain later."

They turned into another new hall, but the sight of two guards had Sam stopping and trying to get back around the corner for cover. He knew that he wasn't going to make it before the guards started firing at them, and Dean apparently knew it, too.

Dean pushed Sam behind him, acting as cover, when the shots echoed in the hall.

Sam watched it all happen in slow motion. Dean cried out and crumpled against the wall, both of his hands pressed against his leg, blood beginning to leak out from between his fingers.

Sam fumbled to pull out his own hidden gun, but he never got the chance to use it. The second guard put his gun up to the first guard's head and pulled the trigger. His eyes turned black and he winked as Sam as he turned the gun towards himself, wrapped his lips around the barrel, and pulled the trigger. Black smoke and brain matter left the body through the back of his head, and both guards were limp and lifeless on the floor.

Sam couldn't let himself think about the guards and the fact that one of them had been possessed by a demon who was _helping_ them, and that was probably the only reason that the next bullet hadn't incapacitated Sam alongside Dean (and honestly, he could use any ally he could get). No, right now he had to think about Dean's leg and what he should do to help it. After all of the training and the hunting over the years, his experience and knowledge left him the moment he needed them the most.

Should he make a tourniquet? At what point was a wound considered bad enough to require one? Was he supposed to find something he could use to dig out the bullet?

Dean's mouth was moving, but Sam couldn't hear any of the words he said. He was too distracted by the sheen of sweat forming on Dean's brow and his pain-stuttered breaths.

He should find their dad, but he didn't want to leave Dean alone in the hallway, crippled (temporarily, Sam hoped) by a lucky shot.

He heard more sets of footsteps approaching, but his father's voice over them was the only thing that kept him from readying to shoot when they turned the corner.

"What the fuck happened?" John asked, falling to his knees next to Dean and trying to pry Dean's hands away so he can inspect the wound.

A pained smile spread on Dean's face. "Just a flesh wound."

"Looks like a bit more than that, Dean."

"Would've been worse," Dean said, "but one of the guards turned on the other. Shot him in the head, then himself."

"He was possessed," Sam said. 'The second guard. He was possessed."

"How do you think we got over here so fast?" Bobby asked. "One minute the guards are all shooting at us, the next they're shooting at each other. Same story, some had eyes that turned black. They shot the other guards, then shot themselves and black smoke came out. Why the hell are there so many demons here?"

"Sam, what's going on? Why are demons helping us?" John asked. He managed to pull Dean's hands away and tore the tear in Dean's pants to make it wider so he could see the bullet wound clearly. "Shit, you're gonna need a hospital. I think the bullet's still in there."

"I don't know why demons are helping us," Sam said, although he had a few guesses. "We need to get Dean to a hospital."

"It's not that bad, and we've come this far to get Liu," Dean said. "Just… I don't know. Just hole me up in a room for now with a gun. I'll be fine."

"Why is it that Winchesters never learn that it's okay to _not_ be fine?" Bobby asked.

"Other than the fact that John is a hardass Marine and the person who raised them?" Caleb asked.

" _There aren't any guards left, Sammy. My… colleagues have made sure of that."_

John didn't bother to glare at Caleb for the comment, which he would've any other time. He was more focused on using strips of his shirt to bandage Dean's leg, and then his upper arm as well when Sam pointed out Dean must have been grazed by another bullet.

"I might have to make a tourniquet," John said. "You're bleeding pretty bad."

"They aren't any more guards," Sam said. "We should be able to get him out and to a real doctor."

" _This might be your only chance to get vengeance."_

Dean shook his head, and Sam could see through his 'tough guy' act. He was pale and shaky, definitely feeling the wounds and the loss of the blood that drained from them. "I can hold out long enough for you guys to go get Liu. We've come too far to just let him go. You know he won't stop going after Sam."

John ran his hand down his face.

"I'll go ahead with Sam, and you two get Dean out of here," Caleb said. "We can meet up with you at the closest hospital."

" _If you don't take this chance, maybe I'll help_ him _find_ you _."_

Sam was sure that John would say 'no', but instead he nodded.

"You better keep an eye on him, Caleb," he said. "But there's a lot we'll be talking about later, Sam."

"With the stories I've heard, I think he can handle himself. I'm just here as back-up," Caleb said.

"I don't like this," Dean said.

"I have to, Dean. Go with Dad and Bobby and get patched up," Sam said. His own hands shook as much as Dean's, but for a different reason. "I have to do this while I can and while I still have the courage."

Sam left before Dean could protest again, leading Caleb down the only path he saw in color.

 _I'm coming,_ he thought, hoping the demon could hear it. _I'll be there._

" _I knew you'd make the right choice. You're smart."_

Running through a mansion to face his tormentor wasn't what Sam would consider smart, but they all needed Liu dead. As long as he lived, Sam knew that he would be in danger. His father and brother would be forced to hover and keep an eye on him; he would be a burden to them. He would be _more_ of a burden to them.

The path ended at a large, wooden door, dark and with a golden doorknob that Sam suspected was real gold and studded with gems. It probably cost more than all of Sam's motel stays in his life added together. And all that money came from crimes and using people as commodities. The bastard. Pastor Jim said that Hell was for the wicked, but even Hell sounded too good for Liu and people like him.

He only realized that he had Dean's blood on his hands when it left a red smear on the doorknob as he turned it and pushed open the door.

Caleb entered first, and Sam froze the second he saw Liu across the room, standing on the other side of an over-sized desk. It was an office, organized to the point of obsession.

Liu looked the same way he did the first time Sam saw him, a clean-cut suit and looking like he didn't belong in a business so dark and twisted. The way he looked so much more professional than the other buyers who inspected him, more like he was a CEO than a slaver.

Liu had his back facing them, but when he looked over his shoulder at them, his eyes were a sickly yellow. "Glad you made it, Sammy," he said. "Liu has been in a panic on the inside, but I've kept him still. Every bone in his body wants to run away right now."

He nodded at the over-sized desk. "He'd been burning incense, hoping it would ward off the evil spirit he knew had to be coming after him once another club had been exposed. I took the liberty of snuffing it out. We don't want you having any breakdowns when you're so close to vengeance."

Sam couldn't find any words. His tongue fumbled in his mouth trying to form a sound, but none came out.

Unlike him, Caleb never had a problem finding words to throw at an enemy (just like Dean). "Awful nice of you to bring out the demon army to help us," he said.

"Oh, you haven't seen a demon army," possessed-Liu said. He focused his attention on Sam. "I don't have my leader for that army, yet. I have to be honest, though. I was hoping John would come. I had a few choice words I wanted to say to him."

"Like what?" Caleb asked. "I can pass on a message."

"I wanted to remind him that his wife died filled with pain and fear, but she only because she got in my way. He's useful to me for now, but he won't always be. Not when I get what I want."

"You were the one that left Sam at the motel door with that note, weren't you?" Caleb asked.

Sam didn't know what Caleb was talking about. When he talked with John later, John wouldn't be the only one with questions.

The demon in Liu smirked, but didn't give Caleb a response. He threw his head back and a stream of smoke flowed from his mouth.

The smoke left the room through the open door behind them, wrapping around Sam for a moment beforehand. In the haze, all he smelled was death and disease and burning flesh. All he saw was pain and suffering.

" _I'll be waiting to greet Liu in Hell. Maybe I'll string him up right next to Davies. Would you like that, Sammy?"_

Liu fell to his knees, shaking and heaving like more smoke would come up. Sam felt a sick pleasure knowing that Davies was in Hell, and that Liu was lined up to join him.

No matter their age, it was wrong to take freedom and life away from the innocent. It was wrong to condition people into a lifestyle that only hurt them. A lifestyle they would never learn to escape from without help. A life of fear and control. All these years, his father has been hunting the wrong things.

It was those thoughts that fueled Sam and stilled his hands, renewed his conviction. In front of him was a man who hurt countless people. He was a man who stole life after life, killing people without taking away their pulse or burying them.

This wasn't just about Sam anymore, this was for all of those lost, wounded souls who were tainted by a fellow human, the worst kind of monster. The kind that tormented their own people.

"Jesus, Sam. Your eyes," Caleb said.

"What?"

"Well, usually they're kind of a brown-green," Caleb said.

"I know that," Sam said. His anger felt like fire coursing through his veins, and he didn't want Caleb to snuff that out and try to stop him from doing a service to humanity.

"They're yellow."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Sometimes, I have to sit back and take a minute when writing this story. While no one was harmed in the creation of this fictional story, for some people, trafficking and modern slavery are very real. It's such a scary thought that humans can do things like that to each other. Out of curiosity, I looked up to see if there were charities for trafficking victims, and there seems to be quite a few.

I'm glad that we, as humans, still try to help each other.

As a side note, a lot changed in the writing of this chapter. Originally, Dean was with Sam to face Liu, then John. Sam's eyes never turned yellow in the first version and there weren't demons involved nearly as much.


	25. The Wicked and the Damned

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

"I'm still _me_ ," Sam said. He didn't feel a haze enveloping his mind or the foreign sensation that he was trapped in a body not his own. He wasn't possessed, and he also didn't want to waste time. Liu was right in front of them, on his hands and knees and too shaken from his possession to fight them. Too shaken to make a run for it or pull out a hidden weapon.

"Okay, Sam, I know that. Maybe we should just talk for a minute. Is vengeance worth losing yourself over? Is it worth trading everything you are and becoming something twisted?" Caleb asked. "How about we tie Liu up for now, then we find John and hope he hasn't left yet. Let him take care of it."

"No," Sam said, his voice a low growl that sounded feral and foreign to his own ears. "This is my fight, not his."

"Sam…"

"If you have a problem, Caleb, get out."

"I'm not leaving you alone like this."

"Then, shut the fuck up," Sam said.

Sam saw Liu try to pull himself to his feet in the corner of his eye. He turned his full attention to Liu and flung out his right hand. "You don't get to leave," he said.

There was a pull from deep inside him, the core of his power (the darkness that shrouded it wasn't something he wanted to think about at the moment). It was on fire. All of him was on fire and pulsing with power that he could taste, and it was a taste he could get drunk on, every molecule comprising his body humming with energy.

Liu fell flat to the ground, struggling against restraints that weren't really there. But Sam saw them. Sam could _feel_ them. They were a part of him, creations of his own mind that became real in all the ways that mattered. The bracelet from Missouri burned on his arm, glowing white like hot metal before disintegrating and falling to the ground in a pile of ashes. Maybe it worked after all, but now any negative thoughts and energy it was supposed to absorb and block could run free.

"Shit, Sam, you need to stop," Caleb said. "This isn't your power. You shouldn't be able to do this."

Caleb's words were no more than a dull roar in Sam's ears. Whatever the new evolution in his power was, whether it was due to his own strength or to demonic influence, it was serving a purpose.

He moved closer to Liu, who started spewing out pleas for forgiveness that alternated between English, Chinese, and other languages that Sam couldn't pin. He crouched beside him, feeling the empowerment of their reversed positions. Him in control, Liu at his mercy.

Mercy that was in short supply.

"Are there any slaves being held here?" Sam asked.

"I'll tell you if you let me go." One last trade. One more business transaction. But really, it was one last act of bravery, but Sam saw through it. When his power was taken away, he was just as pathetic as anyone else in his business.

"You'll tell me, and I won't kill you right now."

"You'll kill me anyway," Liu said. "You're a monster. I saw it in your eyes when you set your room on fire. I see it in your eyes now."

"I'm what you made me into. Now, are there slaves here?" Sam asked again, saying each word slowly and carefully. He put his hand on the back of Liu's head and pushed his face into the floor. His other hand was wrapped in flames, and he moved it close enough to Liu's face that he started sweating and panting.

"No. No," Liu said, shaking his head as much as he could. "The last ones here were shipped out yesterday morning. This is just a midpoint. They moved on to more permanent placements."

"Where?" Sam asked.

"I know the people, not the places," Liu said, every ounce of fear and desperation audible in his voice. He struggled again against the psychic restraints keeping him pinned.

"Then, give me names."

"No one uses their real name in this business," Liu said. "That's all the use you'll get from me. Just let me go."

"Just let you go?" Sam asked. "How many of your slaves asked you to let them go? Did you listen? Did you care? I do have to ask you, though. Why did you do it? Why do anything of this?"

Liu laughed, an almost forced, breathless huff. "Because I could," he said. "Because I enjoyed the power and money."

No sob story. No sugar coating. He gave his reason in as cold of a way as he could when staring at the face of his own death.

No more pleas left Liu's mouth. He looked resigned to the fate that no amount of begging or bribery could change. Sam saw him as pathetic. Without drugs and his helpers disabling his victims, he was nothing. He held no power, and money couldn't buy mercy from someone like Sam. Money meant nothing to him, not like it did to Liu.

"You can turn back, Sam. Let me kill him; you don't have to have his blood on your hands," Caleb said.

"Do you have a knife, Caleb?" Sam asked, ignoring Caleb's requests for him to back down.

Caleb hesitated. "Yeah, of course."

"I need it."

Caleb handed Sam a knife hilt first. "What are you planning on doing?"

"Keeping him still," Sam said. He crouched at Liu's feet. With one swift movement, he severed the hamstring tendons of Liu's leg. With another swift movement, he severed the hamstring tendons of the other leg.

Liu's cries of pain echoed through the room, but Sam didn't feel remorse for his actions. The power he had over Liu and the new evolution of his abilities left him high on adrenaline. As much as it scared him, he wanted more.

Sam gave a stunned Caleb his knife back.

"Holy shit, Sam."

One more thing. Just one more step, and he would be free from Liu's influence. As he released the psychic restraints holding Liu down, he started feeling the drain on his energy. The surge of his power was dwindling as the final moment of his vengeance drew nearer.

He gathered up all the energy he had left, every grain that he could scrap together, and the room erupted in a violent inferno, the largest and fiercest display of power that Sam had shown thus far. A display that shocked even him. Liu's screams were short-lived, and Sam thought he could just barely smell burning flesh.

Caleb's hands were on his arms and pulling him out the door. Sam stumbled along behind him, his vision covered in black spots and eyes and lungs burning from smoke. He tasted blood and felt it, warm and wet, streaming over his lips and dripping off his chin.

But he smiled anyway. He smiled at the knowledge that Liu could never hurt him again. Liu could never hurt anyone again.

"C'mon, Sam. You gotta help me out here," Caleb said between hacking coughs.

Sam used all his energy in his vengeance. His muscles no longer listened to him. His sight no longer showed him anything other than darkness. His legs gave out, and the unconsciousness he slipped into was warmer and more welcoming than it had been in a long time.

* * *

" _I'm proud of you," the demon said, clapping slowly. Just a few times, almost mockingly._

" _So, he's in Hell?"_

" _Yes. He's in pure agony now. He'll be in pure agony forever."_

 _Sam wasn't standing in any specific place beforehand, just a nondescript room that served the purpose of a meeting place for the demon. But after the demon mentioned Liu's agony, one of the walls melted away and showed a torture rack with Liu and Davies strung up beside each other. There were others strung up with them, but Sam didn't recognize their faces._

 _Their screams were inhuman, unlike anything Sam had heard before. He thought he knew what it sounded like when someone was in pain so deep, it made the soul ache. He'd heard both humans and supernatural creatures die on hunts. Some quick, some agonizingly slow. He'd heard his dad's drowned out sobs in the middle of November nights. Sobs that he tried to hide, but the unhealthy level of alcohol coursing through his veins brought them out anyway._

 _The hair on the back of his neck stood up even after the rack faded from the wall and the room returned to normal. The sounds of their pain echoed in his ears. He caught a glimpse of true Hell, and he didn't know how to process it._

 _Was that where he would be headed? He was a murderer now, wasn't he? Hasn't he been since the night he first used his power?_

 _The demon gripped his shoulder and spun him around, planting him right in front of a mirror. The demon vanished, but Sam was frozen in place, staring back at a pair of eyes that were golden where hazel once was._

" _That's not me," Sam said, nobody there to hear him. He closed his eyes, and they were still gold when he re-opened them._

"C'mon, Sam. You gotta keep it together. Your family's gonna kill me if you don't pull through this."

Caleb's voice was familiar and a sign of safety, so Sam made no move to try opening his eyes. He felt like shit. He felt worse than shit.

His head jostled against something hard, and he knew they were in a car. He didn't have the energy to stop his body from shifting with every bump and dip the tires found. Warm blood still dripped down his face from his nose.

"I'm gonna get you to a hospital, Sam. You just have to hold on 'til we get there," he said. "And then you and Dean can be roommates or something. You'll get to watch him drive the nurses crazy while he looks pathetic and steal his pudding cups when he isn't looking. Hell, I'll even steal them for you, if you want."

Caleb kept talking to himself, and Sam drifted in and out, catching bits of a one-sided conversation that made less and less sense with each word spoken.

No matter how bad he felt, the world seemed lighter. They won a battle. Maybe, just maybe, he could start healing and then start moving forward, whatever 'forward' meant for him.

But he remembered Liu had sent slaves off to other people, people who were just as twisted as he was. People who needed to be stopped, and slaves that needed to be saved.

Maybe the world wasn't any lighter, and maybe the battle to help innocents was something that never ended.

His thoughts grew fuzzy and the darkness of his vision thickened until he was no longer aware of what went on around him.

* * *

Dean groaned and cracked his eyes open. He remembered burning pain, and after Sam left with Caleb, his memories became hazy.

"Shit, Dean, how ya feeling?" Bobby asked.

Dean rolled his head to the side and saw Bobby perched at his bedside. "Better than before."

Bobby laughed. "That's thanks to the cocktail of painkillers they have you on. Can't say I'm not a little jealous, but I think you need it more than I do right now, son."

"Sam?" Dean asked.

"He's alright, far as I know. Your daddy is with him while Caleb is sucking down fresh oxygen for smoke inhalation. The doctors are doing all kinds of scans and tests on him, but I'm not sure they're gonna find much. Sam's problems are a bit beyond what they're equipped to deal with."

Dean tried to sit up, but the drugs in his system weighed him down and left him uncoordinated. "Why?" he asked. "What's wrong with Sammy?"

"Nothing as serious as what's wrong with you," Bobby said. "He just exhausted himself. According to Caleb, Sam went a little overboard with his powers when he came face-to-face with Liu."

"What? What does that even mean?"

"It means you need to shut up and sleep for now. You can ask Caleb all about it later, we were a little too busy to play twenty questions with him."

"What happened to me?"

"That bullet shattered your femur, and you're lucky that you didn't die from blood loss. You were rushed into surgery, and now you'll be setting off metal detectors for the rest of your life. Although, you're looking at a long recovery."

"Well," Dean said, "that's the good thing about physical wounds. I can see it, and I know that it's going to heal. I even get an estimate for how long it will take and what to expect. I won't have to live the rest of my life with a broken femur."

"Unlike Sam, right?"

"Yeah, unlike Sam," Dean said. "I mean, shit, we thought we were in over our heads with him before, what the hell is it going to be like now? He killed Liu, didn't he? You can't tell me that's not gonna mess with his head even more. Just _seeing_ Liu again had to be rough on him."

"You just worry about that leg of yours for now," Bobby said. "We can figure the rest out once we get back to my house."

Dean settled back onto the mound of pillows behind him. He ended up as the one in the hospital bed plenty of times after a hunt gone wrong, but that never made it any easier. When he thought about Bobby's comment that he had a long recovery ahead of him, he already felt caged.

He didn't know the full story of what happened between Sam and Liu at Liu's mansion, but he knew that Sam would be needing him. Sam needed him mobile and useful, not lying around with one leg kept stable in ten tons of medical equipment.

This was going to be one hell of a recovery.

* * *

"Sam, I know you're awake."

Sam cracked one eye open and found his dad staring back at him. "That makes one of us," he said, his words soft and slurring.

"Well, this is probably the only chance I'll get to talk to you without Dean trying to shove me out the door, but I have to know what you know about all the demons that were in Liu's mansion that day, and about your eyes changing color," John said.

"I don't know anything about either. The demons were just there, and Caleb told me my eyes were yellow. I didn't do anything to cause those things to happen," Sam said.

"Caleb also told me the message that demon gave him. Was it the same demon that's been haunting your dreams? The same demon that took your body for a test drive around Chengdu?"

"Yes."

John ran his hand down his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Shit," he said.

"He killed Mom, didn't he?"

"Yeah. I think he did. I suspected it was a demon, but could never prove it."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"Your eyes are back to normal," John said, gripping either side of Sam's head and turning it back and forth so he could see at every angle. "What about your powers? Caleb mentioned that they had a new twist to them."

"Telekinesis, but I'm not sure that I could do it again." Sam tried to sit up or move, but everything felt so heavy. He just didn't have the energy. "I don't have anything left in me."

John shook his head. "That last part is true, and probably why you needed a blood transfusion, but psychic abilities don't just come and go."

"I wish they would just go sometimes," Sam said. He left out the second half, the part where he would feel a little more normal if his powers would slip away and never come back. He could be almost human. "How's Dean?"

"He'll make it," John said. "He's got a shattered femur held together courtesy of modern medicine, and it'll keep him off his feet for a good, long while, but he'll be fine. Young and healthy, the doctors expect him to make a full recovery."

"That's good," Sam said. "I'm glad you guys got him here in time."

"Me too, but I shouldn't have left you behind like that either. You shouldn't have faced Liu without us, but I was afraid that Dean would bleed out."

"Had Caleb."

"I'm not sure Caleb was enough."

"You would've tried stopping me," Sam said. "Or you would have shot me yourself when you saw my eyes change."

"You honestly believe that?"

Sam shrugged.

"Sam, shit, I'm not gonna shoot you, but I'm scared that these powers of yours are going to get you killed one day. You're a danger to yourself and others. If it isn't a hunter or some creature that kills you, it'll be your powers themselves. Look at where they've put you."

Sam didn't have the energy to look around, and he couldn't argue with John either. He knew his powers were dangerous. His head was killing him, and he could sleep for a month and still be exhausted. Already, his eyes were slipping closed again.

John's hand brushed away his bangs in a surprisingly gentle movement. "Don't worry, Sammy. We'll kill that demon bastard and figure out a way to keep you safe from yourself and everything else. No one's gonna be shooting you."

It was weird for John to be so nonchalant about the recent events. His eyes and his new ability. The revelation that it was a demon with yellow eyes who killed Mary. Last time, he had to drag him to Missouri in Kansas to have her tell him that Sam was Sam and nothing else. That he wasn't evil or a demon or the thing that killed his mom, just psychic. Although, Sam suspected that John still splashed holy water on him while he was unconscious, just in case.

Maybe John trusted him more now. Trusted that psychics could be powerful and crazy and messed up without being evil.

Or he had another plan. Another promise to himself to keep Sam under strict observation, watched like an animal to keep him from becoming a monster.

How had he gotten to the point where he couldn't tell who to trust anymore?

* * *

Dean's head felt a little clearer when John stepped into his room. "How's Sam doing?" he asked.

"You two are going to be the death of me," he said, taking a seat. "Luckily, his scans didn't show any brain bleeds or anything abnormal. They gave him some blood, tested his, and apparently he's anemic now."

"Shit, it was that bad?"

"Caleb described his nosebleed as being like a faucet that he couldn't turn off, but he'll be fine. You'll both be fine."

"You can't know that for sure."

"No, I can't. But I can know that you'll both be physically fine," John said.

"What are we supposed to do?"

"Get both of you back to Bobby's for a long recovery," John said. "From there, well, I don't know."

Dean hated plane rides already. With a broken femur, he couldn't imagine how much worse it would be. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and resting his head back on his pillows to fight the dizziness that made the world spin.

"Have we ever known?"

"I thought I did once," John said. "Guess I was wrong."

* * *

Sam was discharged before Dean, but he didn't want to go back and rest at a motel with Caleb and Bobby. He sat in Dean's room, the same way that Dean sat in his room the first time they were in China.

Dean was asleep, and Sam realized that it had been a long time since he last saw a sleeping Dean. Usually, he was the one being watched over. Having their positions reversed left a strange feeling. He wasn't the natural caregiver that Dean was. He could barely take care of himself, let alone someone else.

"I'm sorry, Dean," he whispered. "This is all my fault. I couldn't just suck it up. I had to get vengeance, and that makes me the same as Dad. I've become the person that I used to fight against so much. I don't even feel anything. One man is dead, but how many more are out there like him? I can't save everyone who deserves it, and all I've done is get you hurt."

Dean, of course, didn't answer.

"I'm a murderer, Dean. I have been since the first night I used my powers, and I saw Hell. The demon showed me real _Hell._ Is that where I'm heading?"

He stayed quiet for a moment, just listening to the routine sounds of the hospital.

"I'm scared," he said. "I don't want to go to Hell. I only saw it for a second, and that was more than enough. But I still hear the demon's voice in my head. If he wanted me to do something, I don't think I'm strong enough to resist him."

He should've saved these words for when Dean was awake and could hear them, but it was easier to talk to someone he knew couldn't respond. Someone who couldn't judge. As much as Sam wanted Dean to help with all these problems he was acquiring, he didn't want Dean in the middle of his demonic, psychic mess.

"Don't worry about it," Sam said. "I'll figure it out."

* * *

Getting back to Bobby's was easier said than done. Sam was exhausted, and Dean was worse. No amount of painkillers was enough to keep him numb through a long flight followed by a long drive. Through some miracle, they made it to the Salvage Yard and set Dean up on the couch, leg propped up on pillows and the TV remote in his hand.

Dean was already irritated, and he was looking at up to another half a year of recovery with a heavy brace keeping his leg still. Sam tried to distract him with movies and card games, but there was only so much Sam had to work with, besides having his own recovery to deal with. A recovery that wasn't guaranteed to only go forward. A recovery that didn't have milestones or tests they could use to check progress.

John left days ago, not bothering to say where he went, just that he would be back. Sam didn't blame him. It was hard enough when he had to deal with one healing son. Two, well, that had to be weighing him down. If it was a few nights to unwind that he needed, who was Sam to fault him for it? Did he appreciate the timing? No, but they still had Bobby around to help.

Coming home the first time was easier. He was too drugged to realize what went on around him. When that wore off, his mind was shutting down on itself under the belief that he was in a vivid hallucination and nothing more. That maybe he'd been overdosed and his brain was creating a false reality to make dying easier on him. He didn't have to deal with his problems or anyone else's then.

When night arrived, Dean fell asleep easily with the help of stronger painkillers, and Sam settled himself upstairs. He felt the heat of Hell on his skin and heard tortured screams when he closed his eyes. He saw Liu and Davies and others whose names he didn't know bleeding and burning, torn apart, on a rack.

Dean didn't need to witness the nightmares where Sam was strung up alongside them. He didn't need to witness the nightmares where Sam spilled more and more blood not out of righteousness, but because he wanted to relive the thrill that came from power over life.

He spent his nights alone in the room he shared with Dean, who was confined to the couch for the time being. He spent his nights fighting sleep. He didn't need to give anyone a reason to believe that he was the monster that Liu saw him as. That he was the monster he saw himself as.

Bobby had given him an anti-possession charm that he strung on a chain to wear around his neck, and he clutched the charm throughout the night. If there was a Hell filled with demons, he hoped that there was a Heaven filled with angels who heard his prayers. Most nights, he didn't even know what he was praying for.

This was supposed to be the end of his nightmare, with Liu dead and no one to pay any bounties put on his head to give traffickers incentive to track him down.

Somehow, it felt like his nightmare was just beginning.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** In a way, this is the last chapter. Up next will be a short epilogue/transition for the third part. I know that a lot of you were looking forward to Liu's death and had different ways that you wanted it to play out. I rewrote that section so many times, and although I don't think I could ever make it perfect, I hope that it didn't disappoint.

Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites; it really makes my day!


	26. You Go, I'll Stay

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

It was almost fall again before Dean was mostly mobile. Almost a year since Sam was first taken and their whole journey began. He wasn't at one-hundred percent yet, but he was getting close. And that meant he was getting anxious to move on. As much as he tried to hide it, Sam saw through him.

Sam always saw through him.

John came back a week after he first left, and he stayed until Dean no longer needed the heavy painkillers and Sam's nightmares no longer woke up everyone on the second floor of Bobby's house. (While the nightmares never died down in intensity, Sam managed to learn how to keep quiet.) After that, he left regularly to go on hunts, and Dean begged to join him every time.

But Dean hadn't been ready to join those hunts. Now, he could if he wanted to. It might take a few hunts to get him back into the shape he used to be in, but that was never an issue for Dean.

Sam. Sam didn't know if he was fit to go back into hunting. His powers would be invaluable to them, but he hated that he loved to use them. He hated the demon's voice in his ears, the voice that got stronger, more insistent, any time he considered using his powers.

But there would be far too many drawbacks to him returning to hunting. Motel rooms that could send him into flashbacks. The possibility that his mind might shut down to the point where he is too detached from reality to know what's going on around him, what Dean calls his bad or worst days. There were so many things that could go wrong if he went on a hunt. Someone could get seriously hurt because of him.

No, he had to stay away from hunting. For now, at least. Maybe forever.

He had a plan, but he knew Dean wouldn't like it.

Sam stood silently on Bobby's old porch for awhile, letting the sunlight warm skin that had become far too pale over the worst winter of his life. He kept as much skin covered as he could bear—the weather still holding onto the warmth of the fading summer—long sleeves turned into rolled up sleeves, but never much shorter than that.

The old burn on his wrist still stood out, prominent against the skin around it, but he no longer knew what it stood for. Without the numbers, was it a symbol of slavery? Was it the sign of rebellion against the people who tried so hard to take his freedom and break him? Was it just the reminder of a night spent in a foreign city with an addled mind and poor judgment?

"What did you want to talk about?" Dean asked, leaning against the house and looking almost relaxed for the first time in a long time.

"I can't live like this, Dean."

"Sam—"

Sam shook his head, interrupting before Dean got the wrong idea. Which, judging from the pure panic in his eyes, he already had.

"I mean… I'm not okay, Dean. We both know that, and it's keeping you and Dad here," he said. "I know that you both want to help, and I really appreciate that, but I can't live knowing that I'm stealing your life."

"Sammy…"

"I can't hunt, not without putting both of you in danger," Sam said. "We never know what's going to send me into a flashback, or if I might lose control of myself. I bring too many variables. Too many variables that could lead to serious injury or death."

"You can't ask me to leave you behind, Sam. I just can't do that."

"If you don't, you're going to lose your mind. I've seen how you act like a caged animal when you're trapped in one place for too long."

"I do not."

"Dean…"

"Really, I can find something to do now that I'm back on my feet and all," Dean said. "It's not a big deal."

"That's a lie," Sam said. "Hunting is important to you. It's important to you _and_ Dad, and I know that you want to get back on the road. You go, and I'll stay. It's not like we're saying goodbye forever. You can come back to Bobby's and see me whenever you want."

"You've already talked to Bobby about it?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "It was kind of his idea."

 _Sam sat at the kitchen table with a book opened in front of him. He was supposed to be helping with the research for his dad's hunt while Dean had been sent on a run into town because his pacing and frustration over being left behind again were driving Bobby crazy._

" _How much longer until Dean goes with John, whether John wants him to or not?" Bobby asked._

 _Sam shrugged. "He's walking pretty well now. He barely has any issues, other than dealing with the lost muscle from lying around for so long."_

" _What about you?"_

" _I have too many issues to count," Sam said. "I'm still afraid to so much as close my eyes because I know what I'll see, and I don't want to see it."_

" _What will you see?" Bobby asked, taking the book from in front of Sam in a subtle demand for his full attention._

" _Hell. Hell for others or myself."_

" _Do you think you deserve Hell?"_

" _I don't know," Sam said. "But I'm scared that it's where I'm heading. I'm not sure I'll ever be fit for hunting again."_

" _No one's gonna force you to hunt," Bobby said. "You can stay here if you want."_

" _You don't want to deal with me forever, Bobby."_

" _You say that like it's a burden, but you're like a son to me, Sam. You can stay as long as you want."_

" _But the more I shut out the world, the more afraid I'll be of re-entering it. I have to face my fears," Sam said, as if it ever worked for him in the past._

 _Bobby snorted. "Ain't that a load of horse shit. We'll get you set up for homeschooling so you can get still graduate high school, and you've always been smarter than your teachers anyway. Besides, there's a day therapy program in town that I think would do you some good. Not all your problems are supernatural."_

" _That's… Bobby, I…"_

" _Just think about it, Sam," Bobby said. "You don't have to make any decisions right now."_

" _I will. Thank you."_

 _Bobby slid the book back over to Sam and gave him a clap on the shoulder. "You boys gonna be happy with chili tonight?"_

 _Sam nodded, feeling like there was a future for him for the first time since he was taken._

"He's setting me up for homeschooling and a day therapy program," Sam said. "I might be able to get better one day."

"I wish I could give you the things you need," Dean said.

" _What you need is to spill more blood, isn't it? Or have you forgotten how good it made you feel?"_

Sam clenched his jaw and his fists. The demon's voice refused to leave his head, always coming back when he started to believe he was gone for good. He took a deep breath and tried to relax. Tried to not let the extent of his problems show.

If he did, Dean would never go back to living his own life. He would shackle himself to Sam, regardless of what he wanted for himself.

"I know you do," Sam said. "But Bobby can give me those things. You know I'll be safe with him."

"I know, but it's hard to let you out of my sight after everything that's happened."

Sam nodded. The breeze held a bit of a chill in it, but he saw that it was a beautiful day. His mind was no longer so clouded and distracted that he couldn't take a moment to appreciate it. He wondered how many little things he missed over the past year because there were so many big things demanding his full attention.

"It's not like you're leaving right now," Sam said. "Maybe think about it."

"Yeah, I will."

Soon enough, Sam knew that Dean would see this solution was best for both of them. Dean got to return to his life on the road with their father, hunting things and saving people. Sam got stability and access to programs that could, with time, help him recover. Help him regain scraps of the life stolen from him.

If Dean held true to his words, he would see that they only had one option.

* * *

John found a simple salt and burn nearby Bobby's house to take Dean on as a trial run to test if he was ready to rejoin the hunting life. Dean, being a natural born hunter, passed John's test with flying colors.

Which meant his departure was inevitable and drawing close. Sam thought he'd prepared himself for this day, but preparation sometimes wasn't enough.

He watched from the porch as John and Dean packed their few bags into the Impala, opting to leave John's truck behind for the time being. He knew that Dean would choose to leave, and he knew it was the only logical option for both of them, but it hurt to be left behind, even if it was of his own choice.

"You sure this is what you want, Sammy?" Dean asked, pausing in readying the Impala for departure to stand beside Sam. "Not too late to change your mind and come with us."

"Yeah, I'm sure," Sam said, despite his dwindling resolve to do what was best for his family and himself.

Dean nodded. "Well, Bobby will take good care of you, and we'll be back to see you again before you know it."

"I know you will."

They stood in silence, goodbyes not a Winchester specialty.

John closed the Impala's trunk and came to join them on the porch. "About time we hit the road, Dean."

"Yeah," he said.

John gave Sam a pat on his shoulder and a nod. "I'd tell you to be good, but I don't think you need someone to tell you that. You've always been a good kid."

Sam didn't reply, unused to being openly praised by John, no matter how small the comment was.

John didn't need any reply. He moved on and got in the driver's seat of the Impala.

"I guess that's my cue," Dean said. He wrapped Sam in a tight hug. "Call anytime. I don't care if it's the middle of the night, got it?"

"Yeah, I got it."

Dean hesitated for a bit longer, then ruffled Sam's hair, flashed him a signature smile, and got in the Impala with their father.

Bobby came out, the moment between the Winchesters over, and stood beside Sam, both of them watching long after the Impala disappeared into the distance. Bobby put his hand on Sam's shoulder.

"Think I'll ever be able to rejoin them?" Sam asked.

"If you want to, sure," Bobby said. "But I think you need some stability first. A chance to process through everything. Especially since you've spent the past months taking care of Dean instead of yourself."

Sam shrugged. Taking care of Dean kept his mind from wondering to topics that he didn't want to think about. Now, with it being just him and Bobby, he had more than enough time to think about how he was a murderer and how he was probably buying himself a one-way ticket to Hell.

"Yeah, I'm sure it'll be nice to have a routine for now."

He felt the taint on his soul, the stain that he couldn't wash away. There were no day therapy programs for that, and getting a high school degree wouldn't make his soul any cleaner. He saw a blur of shadow in his peripheral vision. But when he flicked his eyes over to get a better look, nothing was there.

" _Where do we begin?"_

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Here's the actual end. It's been quite the ride and I'm glad that so many of you have enjoyed it thus far, your support really kept me going when it got difficult to write at some points.

But wait, there's still more! After I post this, I will post a short first chapter for the third part titled _Embracing the Monster_. If it's not yet in the archives, hopefully you will be able to find it on my profile. Sometimes, there are delays for it to show up.

Before you go, please leave one final review! I hope to see you in part three!


End file.
